FEB 18 1886 



FEB 18 1886 



LETTERS 



FROM 



WALDEGRAVE COTTAGE. 



BY 



REV. GEORGE W.^NICHOLS, A. M. 



AUTHOB OF "CHILDHOOD'S MEMOBIES" AND "A PASTOB'S WEATH." 



NEW YORK : 

JAMES POTT AND COMPANY, 

14 AND 16 AsTOB Place. 
1886. 



FEB / ^1886 ) 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 

GEORGE WARNER MCHOLS, 
In the Oflace of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



From Press of 

The Standard Printing and Publishing Co., 

161-165 FrankUn Street, 

New York. 



TO 

snsA:N" wae:ner niohols, 

OP 

Greenfield Hill, Conn. 

)Iy Dear Sister: 

I dedicate to you the following Letters. 

With many of the scenes, sketches and characters 
therein portrayed you are more or less familiar. I 
know you will appreciate them. I need not say that 
it is a great pleasure to me to dedicate them to one 
whose sisterly affection and kind sympathy, and 
whose intellectual gifts and graces constitute a rich 
source of enjoyment to the writer. Let me conclude 
with the most sincere and ardent wish that you may 
pass many years of serene and quiet enjoyment in 
our old family home at Greenfield, and may life's 
last evening be crowned with that golden sun-setting 
which betokens the brilliance of an unending day. 

Yours, 

In grateful love and affection, 

GEORGE W. NICHOLS. 

Jan't, 1886. 



PREFACE. 



Most of the following letters have already 
appeared in print, and are republished in deference 
to the wishes of many who have read them. A few 
others are printed now for the first time. The book 
is sent forth with the hope that it may not only give 
interest to some leisure hour, but may also be a 
means of usefulness in the hand of that Divine and 
Gracious Being from Whom all good gifts come and 
to Whom are due all our labor and all our love. 

G. W. N. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER No. I. 

Origin of the Title of this Book, or why these Letters are called 
** Letters from Waldegrave Cottage'* — Some Description of 
Waldegrave Cottage — Its Associations and Attractive Sur- 
roundings ,. 11 

LETTER No. II. 

The Old Homestead of my Grandfather — Interesting Historical 
Incidents connected with it — A Description of the Home of 
my Father at Greenfield — Some Account of his Life 16 

LETTER No. IIL 

Pleasant Recollections of my Father's Parsonage at Bedford, 
N. Y. — Description of Scenes and Events, connected with 
the Author's Ministry in the Parish of St. Stephen's, East 
Haddam, Conn 23 

LETTER No. IV. 

Sketches of Scenes and Incidents, connected with Ministerial 
and Parish Life during Four Years' Residence of the Author 
in three Parishes of Litchfield County, Conn o 32 



8 Contents. 

LETTER No. V. 

The Attractions and Beauties of New Haven— College Life — 
Some Notices of the Eminent Professors of Yale ; also some 
Account of the Life and Labors of the Eev. Dr. Croswell, 
Bector of Trinity Church — How he Assisted the Writer in 
Rebuilding a Handsome Eural Church, in the Vicinity — The 
Pleasures of a Brooklyn Residence 39 

LETTER No. YI. 

Life's Retrospect — The Great Advance in Art and Science during 
the Author's Lifetime ; also, the Wonderful Changes in the 
Religious World during the same Period— Importance of 
the Bible 47 

LETTER No. YIL 

Sketches of the Life and Character of Chief- Justice John Jay, of 
Bishop T. C. Brownell, D.D., L.L.D., of Conn., of the Hon. 
John A. Lott, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, and 
of the Court of Appeals, N. Y. State ^o 

LETTER No. VIII. 

The Powerful Influence of a Christian Mother — Biographical 

Sketch of the Author's Mother 63 

LETTER No. IX. 
The Bible — Its Evidences, its Inspiration, its Infallibility 73 

LETTER No. X. 

A Summer Vacation in July, 1874, at Montpelier, Vt.—Scenery, 
Characters and Incident?, — A Summer Vacation in July and 
August, 1676, in Great Barrington, among the Hills of Berk- 
shire, Mass 80 



Contents. 9 

LETTER No. XI. 

Some further Observations on the Bible — The Church: its Broad 
and Catholic Nature — Some Reasons in Favor of the Epis- 
copal Church 8& 

LETTER No. XII. 

Visit to New York — Remarkable Changes — Some interesting 
Reminiscences of the Churches, etc 95 

LETTER No. XIII 

Home and Family — A Divine Institution, framed in Eden — The 
Characteristics of a True Home: 1st, Christian; 2d, Cheerful; 
8d, Healthy 104 

LETTER No. XIV. 

Recollections of Two Distinguished Clergymen — Dr. Francis L. 
Hawks: a Brief Sketch of his Life and Labors — Bishop John 
Henry Hobart: his Birth and Early History; his Extraordi- 
nary Career of Usefulness ; his Sudden and Lamented 
Death 11^ 

LETTER No. XV. 
Summer Life at Waldegrave Cottage — Class Meeting at Yale 117 

LETTER No. XVL 

**In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." "Man shall 
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God.'* ** To do good and to distribute, 
forget not." The Great Object of Life 123 



10 Contents. 

LETTER No. XVII, 

The Vital Question, **Wliat think ye of Christ." What thmk ye 
of Him as Saviour ? The Question a practical and personal 
one 130 

LETTER No. XVIII. 

The Future hidden. * * It doth not yet appear what T7e shall be.'* 

This provision necessary, wise, and beneficent 137 

LETTER No. XIX. 
Hope. Earthly and Christian hope contrasted 143 

LETTER No. "XX. 

jBelshazzar's Feast — A Warning to every Nation against Irreligion 
and Infidelity — An Exhortation to God's Ministers that they 
iaithfully discharge the Duties of their high Office 151 

LETTER No. XXI. 

The Divine hedges: 1st, Conscience ; 2d, Pleasure in Doing 
Good ; 3d, The Restraints and Privileges of Religion ; 4th, 
The Discipline of Adversities ; 5th, The Influences of the 
Holy Spirit 157 

LETTER No. XXH. 

The Transfiguration. The Pre-eminence of the God-man, Jesus 
^f Nazareth 165 

LETTER No. XXIII. 

Easter. The Sacred and Historical Associations of the Holy 
Sepulchre. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 
made alive , 172 



v\/^. 





I 



MAGDALEN WALDEGKAVE. 



J 



L 



Let me explain at the outset my reasons for 
naming the spot from which I am now writing, 
'^ Waldegrave Cottage." It is said, and with con- 
siderable show of truth, that the writer is a descend- 
ant of the Earl of Waldegrave, who died in England 
many years since/ leaving large possessions. That 
some of his descendants came to this country, and 
lived and died here is well known. At least, three 
of their tomb-stones may still be seen in Trinity 
Church-yard, in the City of New York. They stand 
to the north of the Church, about fifty feet west of 
the iron railing on Broadway. One of them is quite 
modern and in a good state of preservation. It is to 
the memory of George Walgrave who died in 1785, 
and his wife, Magdalen, who died in 1821 — the for- 
mer, aged sixty-two years, and the latter, ninety- 
nine years. Their daughter, Magdalen, was married 
to my great-grandfather, George Warner, on 
the second day of February, 1771. She died Janu- 
ary 2d, 1814, and her remains, with those of her 

husband and some of their descendants, are interred 

11 



12 Waldegrave Cottage, 

in the family vault immediately in front of the 
Emmet Monument, in St. Paul's Church-yard. Over 
this vault stands a chaste granite monimient to the 
memory of his daughter, Sarah Firman Williams, 
and in the interior of the Church, near the west 
entrance, may be seen marble tablets to the memory 
of her husband, who died in 1825, and her son, 
Effingham Warner, who died in 1796. My great- 
grandmother was always spoken of as a beautiful 
woman and as possessing graces and accomphsh- 
ments of a rare and high order — and this is my rea- 
son for calling this place ''Waldegrave Cottage.'' 

I came here about one year since, having pre-^ 
viously resided for some twelve years or more in 
the far-famed City of Brooklyn ; not that I wa& 
dissatisfied with it, for Brooklyn is a most 
charming and attractive city, with all its noble 
churches, distinguished preachers and hospitable 
homes, and pleasant friends. But I felt that a 
change from city to country would prove beneficial 
to our health; nor have we been disappointed. IsTor- 
walk, which is now a city of considerable size, 
having fourteen thousand inhabitants, is pleasantly 
located near Long Island Sound, and lies amid 
valleys and sloping hills, from which many elegant 
residences overlook the waters of the Sound. Our 



Waldegrave Cottage. 13 

home, which is a beautiful and tasteful structure, 
lies on one of the principal avenues of the town. 
We have many of the comforts to be found in a city 
— ^gas of superior quality, pure soft water from the 
lakes near New Canaan; besides, a fine lawn is in 
front of the house, and a garden in the rear. A 
favorite horse takes us to ride every day. Indeed, 
the drives in this country are charming — some of 
them leading through the back country to Stamford, 
with its fine residences, New Canaan, with its little 
Gothic towers rising so gracefully among the trees; 
and some leading toward the water. At times we 
drive near the pleasant Summer home of Dr. Alonzo 
Clark, or the palatial residences of the Hoyts, with 
their fine grounds, near Stamford. At other times 
we drive through Westport, a pleasant village, and 
pass the beautiful and perfect little gem of a church 
built by Winslow, the New York banker; or drive a 
little further on, to the splendid seat and grounds of 
Morris Ketchum; or extend the ride still further to 
Greenfield Hill, formerly the residence of Dwight, 
the eminent scholar and divine, who was once Presi- 
dent of Yale College. By following on the road still 
further which leads to New Canaan, we come to the 
quiet inland village of Bedford, in the State of New 
York. In this town the writer spent the days of his 



14 Bedford^ New York. 

childhood. Oh, how many delightful associations and 
pleasant memories cluster around that quiet parson- 
age and little quaint Episcopal Church, which stands^ 
about one mile north of the village, where my boy- 
hood was spent and where my father preached for 
twenty-two years ! How well do I remember that 
old parsonage, with its green lawn in front, over- 
shadowed by the trees planted there by the hand of 
the rector, and the venerable church, too, which 
stood beside it, and the many marble tablets which 
lay around it ! Time, though it seems to obliterate 
often the scenes and events of later years, yet seldom 
can efface from our remembrance the early impres- 
sions of our childhood or the tender associations of 
home. In that church of sweet memories, I may 
here mention, worshiped the various members of 
the family of that distinguished and honored 
patriot, John Jay. I remember him well, and 
recollect perfectly his venerable, mild and placid 
face as he sat at his own fireside, or in his pew on 
Sunday in the parish church, joining with devout 
sincerity in the prayers and hymns or listening to 
the sermon. There sat also his daughters. Miss Ann 
Jay and Mrs. Banyer, and Judge William Jay and 
John Jay, his son now living, late minister from this 
country to the Court of Austria. The Jay mansion 



4 



Bedford^ JSTew York. 15 

stood about two miles north of the church, beautifully 
located upon an elevated slope of ground, from 
which the eye rested upon a broad landscape of 
diversified scenery. This distinguished and honored, 
statesman, after having spent the best part of his 
life in labors for the good of his beloved country,, 
sought this quiet and peaceful retreat, far removed: 
from all the turmoil and business of hf e, and there 
he spent a serene and happy old age in the bosom of 
his family, I have thus thrown together a few 
thoughts from this, my new home, chosen after 
having spent the greater part of life, while health 
and strength permitted, in the duties of the sacred 
ministry, and where I may perhaps pass what of 
earthly life yet remains to me; and should this brief 
letter be deemed of sufficient interest to occupy a 
place in that valuable journal, the Sunday Maga- 
zine, it is at your service. 

Waldegrave Cottage, 

Norwalk, Conru 



n. 



Since I last wrote you from this place, the 
autumnal season has commenced. The vegetation, 
which had begun to droop and wither, by the con- 
tinued drouth, has been revived, and all nature is 
clothed with its fresh robe of green. The country 
was never more attractive for rides and rambles 
than now. As you ascend the hill-tops, behind the 
cottage, and then look down on the valley below, 
the scene is a beautiful one. Everywhere, amid 
picturesque forests and dales, you see the residences 
of the inhabitants, and the tall church-spires point- 
ing heavenward, and one striking residence, erected 
by the late Le-Grand Lockwood, at a cost of $700,000, 
resembling, with its spacious grounds covered with 
trees and verdant shrubs, an English palace. Yes- 
terday we drove away toward the water, amid soft 
autumnal breezes, and in view of the waters, blue 
and sparkling, of Long Island Sound, to a charming 
residence now in possession of a New York family. 
The smooth, white pebbly roads, the grand old forest- 
trees, and the lakes which now and then rose to view 
16 



Family Beminiscences, 17 

— ^the mansion, standing in leafy solitudes and creep- 
ing ivies, all served to enhance the beauty and var- 
iety of the scenery ; and we returned home just as 
the sun was setting behind the hills, and pouring its 
brilliance, amid golden and amber clouds, over the 
whole landscape. I have already spoken of some 
places and scenes of interest about here ; but of 
them all, I knov^ of none invested with a deeper 
interest or charm to the writer than the two follow- 
ing, viz.: one, the ^^old homestead of my grand- 
father"; the other, ^^ the home of my father"; and 
with your permission, I will proceed to speak of 
these places and some historical incidents connected 
i,nerewith. Both of them lie at a distance of about 
eight miles from Waldegrave Cottage, and make a 
very pleasant drive. The former, which was burned 
accidentally not long since, was an old and dilapi- 
dated structure, which had stood for something like 
one hundred years, and was built in the style of 
that period. It had large, square windows, a huge 
iron latch to the door ; a massive stone chimney ran 
up through the centre of the house, and a tall well- 
sweep stood near by, from which you might draw 
a most refreshing draught of cool water on a hot 
summer's day. I remember there was a very large 
fireplace in the sitting-room, and there how often 



18 Family Reminiscences, 

would his children and grandchildren assemble to 
listen to the oft-repeated story of those battle scenes 
in which he took part, and never seemed to tire of 
telhng, or they of listening to him. Oh. how often 
in days gone by have I stopped to take a look at 
the old homestead I There it stood, old and g'oing* 
to decay. True, its rooms were deserted, and no 
longer echoed back the tread of former years. The 
broken panes were visible in the shattered windows* 
But it was interesting, and around it still clung'^ 
many golden associations of days that are past ; for 
it was once the residence of my grandfather — an old 
hero of the Revolution. Let me here give a brief 
synopsis of his history: He was born in April, l"oT^ 
in those stirring days when our forefathers were 
struggUng under oppression and fighting for free- 
dom and the right. Feeling the inspiration which 
then fired the hearts of the youthful sons of many of 
our countrymen, he set out at the early age of nine- 
teen to join the ranks of the Continental Army, and 
proceeded to the City of Xew York, and was there 
at the memorable time of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. He was present when the soldiers demol- 
ished the statue of King George, near the Battery, 
on Broadway. He was at the battle of Flatbush, 
L. I., and saw the British take possession of the 



Family Eeminiscences. 19 

fortifications on Brooklyn Heights, after they had 
been quietly abandoned by the Americans during the 
night of August 30th, 1776. He assisted likewise 
in erecting the fortifications at Red Hook, which 
was done during the night, that our army might, if 
possible, take advantage of the enemy. About this 
time he suffered much from exposure and hardship, 
as all our soldiers did ; still he kept firmly to his post 
of duty, and marched on with the army into the 
County of Westchester, after the city had been 
evacuated by the Americans, and participated in 
and stood in the thickest of the fight at the famous 
battle of White Plains. After this indecisive engage- 
ment, as it proved to be, he still followed on with 
the army as far as Tarrytown and North Castle, and 
leaving the army he returned to his native place, 
and arrived home on Christmas Day, 1776. He 
joined the army a second time, and then started to 
aid in the capture of General Burgoyne, but had pro- 
ceeded only as far as Ridgefield when the news came 
that Burgoyne was a prisoner. This was the last of 
my grandfather's participation in the Revolutionary 
confiict. He then took up his abode in that old 
homestead. He was soon married, and reared a 
family of three sons and two daughters. I will not 
attempt to trace their history nor depict the varied 



30 Family Reminiscences, 

scenes of joy or sorrow which were witnessed there. 
None of that household are now living — and yet 
they are not dead ; for they still live in the hearts 
and affections of their descendants. They still live 
in the deeds and actions of their lives. These give 
immortality to the man. These survive the corrod- 
ing touch of Time. I often think how much force 
and beauty there is in the following lines of Long- 
fellow: 

** Happy he whom neither wealth and fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city, 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of the ancestral homestead. 
We may build more splendid habitations, 
Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, 

But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations." 

But I hasten now, Mr. Editor, to give you a brief 
description of the home of my father, the late Eev. 
Samuel Nichols, D.D., which lies not far from the 
site of the old homestead just spoken of. It stands 
fronting the public green in the village wherein stood 
the church and school-house where Dwight taught 
his pupils. A little way down the village street may 
also be seen the identical house, now in possession of 
Mr. Frederick Bronson, where Dr. Dwight, the fam- 




RESIDENCE OF THE LA.TE REV. SAMUEL NICHOLS, D. D., 
Gbeenfield Hill, Conn, 



r 



Family Reminiscences. 21 

ous scholar and divine, resided for twelve years. 
The house of my father is a wide, low-roofed struct- 
ure, with central hall and piazza, front and rear. 
Its rooms are large and commodious, and well 
adorned with fine pictures, the productions of one 
of his daughters, a distinguished artist. In this 
quiet and sequestered nook, looking out upon the 
green, covered with the grand old elms, my father 
spent the last days of life's quiet evening, and here he 
died some two years ago, at the advanced age of 
ninety-two years. He was born November 14th, 
1787 ; fitted for college at Easton Academy, joined 
the Sophomore Class at Yale in 1809, and graduated 
in 1811. Shortly after his graduation he became an 
instructor in the academy at Fairfield, l^]". Y., where 
he married my mother, a lady of high Christian 
character, belonging to one of the old Knickerbocker 
families of N"ew York. Her father died when she 
was but seven years of age, and she was left in the 
care of her grandfather, George Warner, a citizen of 
New York, a man much esteemed in his lifetime, 
and distinguished for his good deeds. He belonged 
to the Episcopal Church, and was a prominent and 
active leader in old Christ Church in 1794, when that 
church stood near the Post-Office, in Anthony street, 
and afterward became connected with St. Stephen's 



22 Family Eeminiscences, 

Church, in Broome street : and what was very sin- 
gular, he was very much hke a Methodist, for he 
held his revival meetings for exhortation and prayer, 
at which many converts were made, who joined 
the church under the venerable Dr. Moore. He was 
a member of the Legislature, and while at Albany 
held his religious meetings. What a surprise now 
would it be to see such a man at Albany 1 In 1815 
my father became rector of St. Matthew's Church, 
Bedford, X. Y.. where he remained for twenty -two 
years. As rector of that parish, he was faithful, 
earnest, beloved by his people. It was from this 
parish that he removed to his native place, to spend 
the declining years of life. There, soothed and 
encouraged by the love and attentions of his chil- 
dren and friends, he departed hence to meet his 
reward. 

'' Thus star by star declines 
Till aU liaye passed away, 

And morning high and higher shines 

To pnre and p-rfect day ; 
Kor sink those stars in empty night , 
But hide themselves in heaven's own light." 



III. 



How rapid is the flight of time! Who would have 
thought a few weeks ago, as you rode along the 
w^ooded roads, and beheld the yellow leaves falling 
upon the ground, and the fields looking as green 
as ever, that Winter would so soon have come 
upon us ? — stern Winter, with its fierce winds and 
frosty nights. And yet it is even so. I sit in my 
cosy parlor and look out of the window, and 
the flowers have disappeared from the garden. The 
pines and hemlocks stand covered with snow. The 
shrill wind howls and moans through the chimney; 
and, as night approaches and reveals the starlit 
heavens, the moon casts her silvery beams over the 
snow-bound fields. How rapid is the flight of time ! 
And yet we cannot stay that flight; we cannot hold 
these precious days, and weeks, and hours, or pre- 
vent them slipping from our grasp. But (and it is a 
cheering thought), we can improve them; we can 
turn our thoughts to indoor life — to the pleasures of 
home and social intercourse and literary pursuits. 

23 



24 Parish Memories, 

It may not be amiss, Mr. Editor, that in the follow- 
ing letter I should ask the attention of your readers 
to a few recoUec'jions of scenes and places, such as 
have fallen within the writer's sphere of observation 
in years that are past. And — 

First — A few recollections of my father's parson- 
age. It is thirty years, or more, since the writer 
visited the spot, and yet I remember it distinctly as 
though it were yesterday. It was a neat, white, 
wooden building, surrounded with a forest of maples 
and locusts. The little antique church, built of 
brick, with tower and cupola, stood close by just 
outside the parsonage gate. I remember all its 
rooms — the parlor, where we sat — a family group, in 
pleasant converse; the study, with its shelves of 
books, and table where my father sat and wrote his 
sermons; the chambers, where we slept. It was a 
favorite walk with us down the lane, which ran 
through the parsonage ground to a piece of woods, 
and from thence, crossing the river, we frequently 
in Sununer ascended a tall mountain, from whose 
summit there might be seen a very picturesque view 
of forest and woodland. Oh ! how often have I 
climbed that mountain and looked down with delight 
on the many objects below, then so dear to the heart 
of childhood — the church and the parsonage, the 



Parish Memories. 35 

schoolhouse and other dwellings which occupied the 
neighborhood. 

How many sweet memories, how many fond recol- 
lections, cluster round that quiet old parsonage ! It 
was there that the young mind received its first 
impressions of truth and moral beauty; there that 
the young affections were trained, and linked by the 
tender associations of home — brother, sister, father 
and mother. That father, who presided over the 
household, counseled its inmates, and each morn and 
night kneeled and prayed for them, after the even- 
ing hymn was sung — forget him ? forget his counsel 
and his prayers ? Never ! That mother, who with 
gentle eye, and sweet smile, and loving face, 
watched over her children and gave them her gentle 
counsels and kindly admonitions. Forget her ? as 
well might you undertake to forget your own being. 
No ! it is impossible; you cannot forget them. They 
are both gone to the better land ! But oh ! how their 
teaching and examples live ! If you could lift the 
curtain that hides the future you would see that the 
first instructions and influences of home generally 
decide what is to be the great governing principle of 
life, and that the destiny of youth is mostly shaped 
by the hand of the mother. 



26 Parish Memories. 

Second — Let me invite your attention to a few brief 
Teminiscences of scenes and places connected with 
parish life at East Haddam, on the Connecticut 
Hiver. One who has never visited this portion of 
the country can scarcely conceive the rare beauty of 
the scenery along the banks of the Connecticut. The 
picture is exceedingly attractive as you behold 
the majestic river winding along its course amid 
the hills and meadows. The white sails are ever 
moving upon its bosom, the steamboats passing and 
Tepassing. And then, looking out upon the opposite 
bank, you behold the country seats, farms and cot- 
tages amid the adjoining groves and woods. The 
town referred to, which was the scene of the writer's 
ministerial labors, is divided into two smaller vil- 
lages or hamlets, each having a landing for steam- 
boats and other vessels. There is a road, a little way 
back from the rocky banks of the river, which leads 
from one of these villages to the other; and, as you 
pass along this road, the country on the east rapidly 
ascends, sometimes almost precipitously. It is upon 
one of these heights, about midway between the two 
landings, that the Episcopal Church stands, upon a 
most commanding elevation. So lofty is the spot, 
that the church may be seen for a distance of twelve 



Parish Memories. 27 

miles by any one viewing it from the deck of a steam- 
boat upon the river. It has an unpretending exter- 
ior, after the fashion of that early period, having 
l)een erected about the year 1797. The interior is 
plain. A simple arch overhead is supported by long, 
heavy fluted columns. It contains an organ of con- 
siderable size, and much power, and has one rare 
curiosity, viz., a bell with an inscription upon it, 
dating back 1,035 years. It was one of those old 
Spanish convent bells, a number of which, some 
years ago, found their way into this country, and 
v^ere distributed through the land. Could that old 
bell tell its history, how many interesting scenes 
vrould it disclose ! 

Upon coming to the place, my first business was to 
-occupy the room and study which had been fitted up 
by the kindness and generosity of my parishioners. 
It overlooked the waters of the river. The scene, as 
I sat there, busy with my books and papers, was very 
pleasing. A small ferryboat, large enough to contain 
two or three horses and carriages, was often cross- 
ing the river. I learned from one who had acted as 
ferryman for several years a most thrilling adven- 
ture which I here proceed to narrate for the benefit 
of my readers. In the Spring the river is subject to 



28 Parish Memories. 

great freshets. The snow among the mountains^, 
melted by the warm sun, pours down in innumer- 
able currents into the river, causing it to be much 
swollen, and not unfrequently buildings, houses and 
barns, and sometimes families, are swept away. It was 
in one of these seasons of freshets in the river that 

Mr. , the gentleman just spoken of, undertook 

to ferry a team with a large load of hay across the 
river. The wind was blowing fresh as the com- 
pany, consisting of the ferryman and his boy, who 
assisted him, and the teamster with his load of hay, 
started from the shore. They had preceded safely 
as far as the middle of the river, when the wind 
seemed to swell into a gale. The clouds began to 
collect in wild and fearful commotion. Amid the 
howling of the winds, and the roar of the waters, 
the boat became perfectly unmanageable. Such was 
the fierce tumult of the wind and waves as to carry 
under the boat in a moment. By some strange 
chance of fortune, the team and driver were saved. 
The oxen became disengaged from the cart, and swam 
to the other side and were also saved. The ferry- 
man, after being thrown with his boy into the angry 
and tumultuous waters, swam down amid the cur- 
rent, the boy clinging to his back with a death- 



I 



Parish Memories. 29 

grasp. He tried to shake him off, fearing that he 
would drown him, but found he could not. In the 
meantime, the interested crowd of spectators on the 
shore were anxiously waiting and gazing with dim 
eyes through the darkness to see the fate of the unfor- 
tunate crew. They immediately got out a large boat, 
followed hastily along the shore and rushed to the 
aid of the old ferryman and his boy. Both were 
saved, and the joyful news was soon borne to every 
house in the village. 

When Mr. narrated to me this wonderful 

adventure, he added : '' I never expected to weather 
the fearful perils of that awful gale." But to pro- 
ceed with my narrative. 

Upon entering on my duties in my parish, I found 
that the church of late had very much declined in 
numbers and spiritual prosperity. Some unhappy 
questions of a secular nature had been suffered to 
influence the minds of the parishioners and alienate 
them from each other. After laboring, however, for 
some months among the people, I had the satisfac- 
tion of beholding the parish manifesting a deeper 
interest in religious things than they had hitherto. 
The church was attended by larger and more atten- 
tive congregations, and a more cordial spirit of unity 



30 Parish Memories. 

and good feeling began to exist among its members. 
And I was also delighted to recognize not only those 
profescedlv belonging to my own church, but many 
others belonging to various rehgious denominations, 
who live in the hamlets below, some thi^ee miles 
distant from their own church. 

Encouraged by the success of my labors, I con- 
tinued on in that parish, surrounded by a band of 
faithfiil workers, and upheld by the hands of devoted 
friends and parishioners, until declining health com- 
pelled me to leave for rest and recreation: nor shall 
I soon forget the scene, as I finally left a people who 
had shown me unremitting kindness, among whom 
I had labored with the Divine blessing. 

It is evening. The dusky shades of twihght 
deepen. The steamer has just come up to the wharf. 
I have shaken hands for the last time with many of 
my warm-hearted friends and parishioners. I hasten 
on board and the boat quickly recedes from the 
wharf, and as I stand upon the deck, I see, now and 
then, an anxious eye watching me and waving a 
parting signal. I see the window of my study, 
where I have spent so many pleasant hours, fading 
from my sight, and the church spire on the hill- 
top vanish, where we have so often communed 



Parish Memories, 3;l 

with God in prayer. Farewell ! ye temple walls,, 
which have so often re-echoed the praises of our 
God ! Farewell, ye peaceful homes, at whose fire- 
sides I have so often sat and talked on things spir- 
itual and divine ! Farewell, ye little children of the 
Sunday-school, whose sweet countenances have so 
often looked smilingly on me as I have tried to lead 
you in the Lord's pastures ! May we all meet a 
united parish in heaven 1 



IV. 



AViLL you allow me, briefly, to continue in this 
and the following letter the sketches of scenes and 
incidents in ministerial and parish life begun in my 
last ? During 18J:9-5-2, it was the writer's privilege 

to minister in the town of , in the County of 

Litchfield, Conn. The j)arish had been once the 
scene of Bishop Griswold's saintly labors. It was 
here, amid these romantic hills, amid a simple- 
hearted, intelligent and spiritually-minded people 
that this great and good man began his early minis- 
try — a ministry that was afterward to ripen into a 
most glorious and fruitful harvest. I found there a 
high moral elevation, an exalted spiritual standard 
of conduct and life such as we might naturally ex- 
pect such a man would impart. And although years 
had passed away, it was easy to see still the traces 
of the good bishop's holy labors in this parish; and, 
as I often rambled in the fields or climbed the hills 
in search of the farmhouses of my parishioners — 
32 



I 



Parish Memories. 33 

T^hich were scattered far and wide over the country 
— I could not but call to mind how these same hills 
had been trodden by the footsteps of him who once 
here broke the bread of life to his privileged flock. 
I found many aged persons in whose recollections 
the good bishop's life and labors were treasured up 
as precious mementoes of their early years. One 
aged lady, with whom the bishop lived, and where 
he studied and wrote, ever spoke of that good man 
with the utmost respect and friendship. I shall not 
forgot the deep interest with which another, an aged 
man, who had also had the honor of providing a 
home in his humble dwelling for the good bishop, 
spoke to me, during his last illness, of the life and 
ministry of Bishop Griswold. I found him confined 
to his sick bed, and in a state of want. But few, if 
any, of his distant kindred seemed to take any inter- 
est in the aged sufferer. I relieved his necessities 
from the charitable fund of the parish. But, oh, how 
he seemed to cherish the remembrance of his early 
pastor ! At the mention of that name there would 
kindle up in the old man's countenance a smile 
which made him almost forget his bodily suffering 
and the signs of destitution by which he was sur- 
rounded. Facts like these serve to show us what a 
mighty hidden power for good there is in the teach- 



31 Parish Memories. 

ing and example of a faithful minister. Bishop Gris- 
wold was the father-in-law of the elder Dr. Stephen 
H. Tyng, and I have no doubt that his eminent 
example and singular devotion had an influence in 
shaping the future course and career of his son-in- 
law, and making him, as he has been, a man of 
great power. 

A somewhat singular episode occurred while the 
writer was in charge of the parish before named. I 
received, one day, a letter from a clerical brother — 
then officiating in the parish of Salisbury, in the 
northwestern extremity of the State — in which he 
wrote as follows : 

^^Rev. and Dear Brother: I am about resigning 
my parish, in order to accept a call to the church 
at Niagara Falls. Our vestry here and myself are 
unanimous, and we have selected you as the future 
pastor of this church. We will not take No for an 
answer. You must come. Faithfully, yours. 



I immediately sat down and wrote as follows : 

^'Rev. and Dear Brother: Your letter has been 
received. My parish here is united, and everything 



Parish Memories. 35' 

is prospering. I do not think it advisable, even 
though my salary were increased, to leave the par- 
ish, and must therefore beg to decline your urgent 
invitation. Your brother in Christ, ." 

In about two weeks after this I received another 
and still more urgent letter, begging me to reconsider 
my former determination, and to come and spend a 
Sunday, which I finally consented to do. After vis- 
iting the parish, and thinking over the whole subject, 
I resolved to accept the call, and, upon my return, I 
resigned my parish; when, what do jou think 
occurred ? A letter came, informing me that my 
reverend brother of Salisbury had concluded not to 
resign his parish. Some rumor had been started 
affecting his moral character, when all his parishion- 
ers immediately rallied to his support, determined 
that he should not resign, and that they would stick 
by him and defend him to the last. This, to say the 
least, was placing me in a very awkward and 
unpleasant position. I was afloat without a parish. 
What was I to do ? I suddenly recalled to mind a 
little circumstance which had occurred some six 
weeks previously, when a gentleman belonging to 
one of two associated parishes in the western portion 
of the town called upon me and inquired how I 



36' Parish Memories. 

would like to change mv present cure for that of the 
two parishes he represented ? "When the question 
was first put to me I replied in the negative. Were 
those parishes still open ? I resolved at once to solve 
that question and drove to the house of the gentle- 
man to whom I have just referred, a distance of 
about eight miles. He received me cordially, and 
an arrangement was made at once to accept the 
charge of these two parishes. It seemed to me a 
direct ordering of Providence; for it proved a far 
-more eligible and desirable field of labor than either 
the one I had left or the one I proposed to accept. 
How true is the saying that '-'man proposes, but 
God disposes.'' My cure now embraced two par- 
ishes, having two churches, four miles apart, and 
running over a territory eight miles long and four 
miles broad. And the blessing of the Lord prospered 
abundantly my labors in it. One of my parisioners, 
or pewholders, was the mother of the distinguished 
and most brilliant Presbyterian preacher. Dr. Char- 
les Wadsworth, who so long and so successfully filled 
the pulpit of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, 
in Philadelphia. I never had the pleasure of a per- 
sonal acquaintance with him, but have been charmed 
and delighted with his pubhshed sermons. In the 
other parish, I nimibered among my most valued 



Parish Memories. 37 

parishioners a lady of high accomplishments and 
fine education — a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Truman 
Marsh, who preached in St. Michael's Church, Litch- 
field, for many years. He was very hypochondriacal,, 
and every Sunday became so depressed that he could 
not muster courage to preach. But his wife would 
encourage him, give him some simple remedy, and 
tell him to mount his horse, and he would ride,, 
accompanied with a hired man, to the church, and 
preach two most admirable sermons, and then return 
home. This he did until he was very advanced in 
life. It was in Litchfield that the Rev. Mr. Bayley 
who was then a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, 
but who afterwards joined the Church of Rome, and 
became an archbishop — it was here that he became 
enamored of a young lady of high accomplishments 

— a Miss , who, though she did not marry him 

(the laws of the Roman Church forbidding it), yet 
imbibed his teaching, and embraced the faith of that 
Church, and went into a convent in the city of New 
York, where she resided for some time; but I think 
she subsequently renounced her faith in Romanism, 
and returned to her Protestant belief, friends and 
home again, to their great joy and satisfaction. She 
was a very intelligent and lovely woman, and her 
society was much sought after. In her family circle,, 



38 Parish Memories. 

"svhich she graced, she was the idol of fond parents 
and a large circle of admiring friends. 

Thus passed away about four years of ministerial 
life, amid the hills of Litchfield, amid hospitable 
homes and kind parishioners; and in looking back to 
those four years, I have much to recall with pleasure, 
.and nothing to regret. 



V. 



There are few cities of our country around which 
gathers a greater interest than New Haven. The 
magnificent churches and other buildings which 
surround and occupy the pubhc Green, overshadowed 
by the tall, graceful elms; the highly educated, 
refined and intellectual character of its people; the 
College, with its numerous buildings; the Art 
Gallery; the Marquand Chapel; Library, etc., all 
these have given a justly-deserved fame to New 
Haven. During the writer's college days, the city 
had far less claim to renown. It was smaller than it 
is now, the churches fewer and less ornamental, the 
buildings belonging to the college plainer and much 
less in number. At that time there were no means 
of access to the place except by stage-coach and 
steamboat, and college students found it a long and 
forbidding journey from their homes to the college. 
Many college scenes, incidents and characters, still 
remain indelibly impressed on my memory. Though 
young and inexperienced, I had left my home well- 
trained under the teaching and example of Christian 
39 



40 Yale College. 

parents, and, therefore, was not so likely as many 
others to be drawn into any wild and dangerous 
pranks, such as often occur among college students. 
I remember hearing of one of these reckless and 
silly adventures which occurred many years since at 
Yale. A party of students, bent on mischief and 
fun, went out and robbed a neighboring farmer of 
one of his turkeys. They brought the turkey home, 
dressed it, and resolved to have a feast in one of 
their rooms. Here they assembled one evening, 
cooked the turkey, made the fixings and gravy, and 
all sat down to enjoy their evening's repast. They 
had nearly finished when a loud rap was heard on 
the door from a tutor or professor. What should 
they do ? It would not do to be caught in that situa- 
tion. It was instantly resolved to remove all traces 
of the feast. The turkey and dishes were secreted, 
and, not having any other place, they poured the 
gravy into one of their boots. One of their number 
reads from the Scripture the chapter containing the 
passage: ^^A wicked and adulterous generation 
seeketh after a sign; but no sign shall be given them, 
but the sign of the Prophet Jonas," etc. Another, 
with serious and solemn tone, utters a prayer. Thus, 
they escaped detection, and the professor passed on. 
Among those who left a very strong and enduring 




THE REV. HAHRY CROSWELL, D. D., 
Rector of Teinity Chtjech, New Haven, Conn. 



Bev. Dr. Croswell. 41 

impression at that time on the writer's mind was 
President Day, a most excellent and venerable man, 
of whom it has been said wittily, that '^ he was a 
man without either original sin or actual transgres- 
sion." I remember, also, the striking appearance of 
Professor Daggett; Professor Goodrich, who taught 
the students in elocution; Professor Silliman, whose 
lectures on chemistry and geology were a rich treat 
to his audience; and last, not least, I remember dis- 
tinctly the appearance of the venerable Eector of 
Trinity Church — Dr. Harry Croswell — whose tall 
figure and manly form, clerical garb, and high- 
topped boots with knee-buckles, impressed every 
beholder, as they saw him walk the streets of J^ew 
Haven. Dr. Croswell was, in many respects, a most 
wonderful man. He was not a great or very 
eloquent preacher, but he had a right heart, and an 
earnest will, and an extraordinary knowledge of 
human nature, and could ingratiate himself into 
every man's heart. He commanded the highest 
regard, not only among his own people, but among 
Christians of every name. He died in 1858, aged 
seventy -nine. When he first entered on his duties 
as Rector of Trinity Church, there was but one 
Episcopal Church in New Haven. Now there are 
nine. It was during the early part of my ministry,. 



42 Bev. Dr. CroswelL 

being then without a parish, that I made a call on 
"the Rev. Dr. CroswelL He received me most cor- 
dially, and directed my attention to two vacant 
parishes in the vicinity. One of these was a rural 
town, far behind the age in scientific and educa- 
tional advantages, and still clinging with great tena- 
city to their old superstitions and crude notions of 
men and things. A wag, one day, was asked by a 
person whom he met, '' What do you think of this 
town r " Why," said he, " I will tell you, and I do 
not know how better to express my meaning than in 
two lines of poetry: 

" * A big meeting-house, a tall steeple, 

A superstitious priest, and a rickety people.* " 

This was literally true; the one minister, who had 
been there from time immemorial, had a large stone 
church, and had come to think that no one else 
ought to have any jurisdiction over the people, 
either in politics or religion; for at one time he had 
•driven out the Methodists, and at another attempted 
to scatter the Episcopalians, by preaching one Sun- 
day a sermon in his church in which he threw all the 
bishops off the throne and took the chair himself. 
The Episcopalian Church was a very diminu- 
tive, barn-like structure, and hence, on coming 



Bev. Dr. CroswelL 43 

into the place, I immediately directed my most 
strenuous efforts to rousing the people and urging 
them to build a more decent and respectable house 
for the worship of God. I knew that it would help 
greatly to further this object to enlist the sympathies 
and attention of my friend, Dr. Croswell. I laid the 
whole subject before him. He brought the matter 
before the ladies of his church, and they helped us 
greatly in a fair which was held in the town-hall to 
raise funds for the new church. A subscription, 
which was very successful, was started in the 
parish, and the result was that a new and beautiful 
Gothic church was built, and furnished, and car- 
peted in the short space of three or four months, and, 
what was better than all, was paid for. 

After the edifice was completed, we held our open- 
ing service, at which Dr. Croswell was present, and 
took part, much to my satisfaction, as well as that 
of the congregation. Dr. Morgan, of St. Thomas 
Church, New York (then the assistant of Dr. Cros- 
well), also participated in the services. It was an 
interesting occasion, and one long to be remembered; 
and I was frequently afterwards accosted by neigh- 
boring brother-clergymen who would say to me : 

'' Why, Brother , it seems almost a miracle. I 

wonder how you could take hold of such a feeble 



44 Bev, Dr. Ci^oswelL 

little church, in such a community — so much behind' 
the age, and withal so penurious as they were, and 
induce them to build that beautiful church." I have 
never regretted since that I called on my good 
friend, the distinguished rector of Trinity, and took 
his advice, for it proved a most successful under- 
taking; and the church has since prospered, a par- 
sonage having been built and the church well 
attended. 

After having spent about fourteen years of my life 
in ministerial duty, in various fields of labor in the 
State of Connecticut, Mr. Editor, I moved to your 
goodly city of Brooklyn, where I have resided, with, 
the exception of a few brief intervals, until my 
removal to this place — ^^Waldegrave Cottage."" 
When I went to Brooklyn, and during the many 
years of my sojourn there, my health had not been 
fully adequate to the care of a parish, so that I have 
been under the necessity of turning my attention to- 
business in order to live. By the blessing of God, 
success has attended me, and my years in Brooklyn 
have ghded on smoothly and happily amid the kindly 
intercourse of genial friends and intellectual com- 
panions. 

On Sunday, while we have frequented and enjoyed 
the privileges of worship in our sanctuary, we have 



Brooklyn, N. Y. 45 

^occasionally derived great satisfaction and profit 
from listening to the discourses of other eminent 
divines in the City of Churches — particularly those 
of the Rev. Dr. Scudder, whom I have always looked 
upon as a preacher having few rivals in this or any 
country. Frequently, when dull and depressed, I 
have started with my wife on a Sunday evening for 
the church, which was near by, and after listening 
with great pleasure to Dr. Scudder, have returned 
home, my whole moral and intellectual nature 
elevated and impressed by the theme of his discourse 
— so skillfully unfolded and illustrated as to form 
the subject for a most delightful hour's conversation. 
I wonder not that he is so successful in gathering 
large congregations around him. But while we often 
look back and recall with pleasure the many happy 
days and hours spent in the society of kindred and 
friends, the memories of pleasant and profitable 
Sabbaths, and week-day lectures by men of note and 
distinction to which we have listened with delight, 
yet we regret not that these have been exchanged 
for a new Summer home in the country, where, 
instead of being pent up in a narrow inclosure and 
confined to a space of a few feet, we may look out 
upon the broad landscape of mountain and valley, 
and listen to the matin songs of birds in springtime. 



46 Brooklyn^ N. Y. 

breathe in the air scented with the perfume of blos- 
soms and the new-mown hay ; listening no 
longer to the continual clatter of carts and vehicles, 
nor to the endless buzz of business in the crowded 
street, but to the gentle sighing of the wind among 
the trees of the forest, the murmur of the mountain 
rivulet, or the bleating of the flocks and herds upon 
the hillside. But it is time, Mr. Editor, to draw this 
letter to a close. So I bid you adieu, and reserve 
what more I have to say to another time. 



YI. 



In the following letter I have thought it might not 
be amiss for me to present to the readers of your 
Magazine a few reflections which have suggested 
themselves to my mind at this somewhat protracted 
period of life. 

1. And on looking back over life's pilgrimage, I 
have been profoundly impressed with the wonderful 
discoveries which have been made in human science^ 
as applied to the comforts and conveniences of civil- 
ized life. Had any one in my childhood told me that 
I would live to see the day when steam cars would 
fly across the country, carrying passengers and 
freight at the rapid rate of forty or fifty miles an 
hour; or messages would be transmitted from city to 
city in the space of a' few moments; or persons could 
converse with each other by telephone in distant 
places; or news from foreign lands would reach us, 
transmitted by cables under the ocean, so quickly as 
to be published in the morning papers and read at 
47 



48 Life's Betrospecf. 

our breakfast tables — I say, had any one made such 
marvellous statements as these, in my youthful 
days, who would have believed them ? And yet they 
iare true. I remember, when but a child, leaving 
home, scarcely ten years old, and riding with my 
father through the county of Westchester, in the 
State of New York — a distance of forty-five miles — 
.all the way in a rumbling stage-coach, and arriving 
just at the dusk of evening at the house of my grand- 
father, which stood then not far from Vauxhall Gar- 
den, surrounded by flower garden and apple orchard, 
with a plant-house and stables and carriage-house in 
the rear. It was his country seat, to which he had 
repaired from the heat, noise and dust of the city 
below, where he might enjoy the fresh air and the 
perfume of the sweet blossoms of fragrant tulips and 
hyacinths. I can remember, too, the public open 
road through which our four-wheeled coach and 
horses drove along, slowly, by a sohtary road, with 
a scattered dwelling now and then, where now stand 
ivhole blocks of palatial residences, marble palaces, 
and stores and gorgeous churches. I can also call to 
mind with what a thrilling sensation of delight we 
rose early in the morning and set out with our two- 
seated open farm- wagon (our company consisting of 
iather, mother and myself) and drove the whole day 



Life's Retrospect. 49 

long till sunset— a journey of fifty miles— on a visit 
to our distant kindred in the State of Connecticut. 

Ah! those were happy, joyous days; we never 
tired of the beautiful scenery along the road, the 
faces we saw, the green fields and forest trees, 
the villages with their dwellings, and, above all, the 
hearty greetings we received and the warm welcome 
as we drove within the gate, and entered the old, 
well-remembered door with its iron latch. Oh, those 
were indeed happy days! we do not expect to see 
their like again. But we would not think of travel- 
ing so now. If we were going now to Newport or 
the White Mountains, we would, very likely, take a 
palace-car, and reach there in a single day. But, I 
remember, it was just after leaving college (no such 
thing then as steam-cars and steamboats), we set out 
(father and myself) with our faithful horse and open 
v^agon. It was a long, long journey. It took us 
weeks to accomplish it. We crossed into the State 
of Connecticut, and then followed the road leading 
through those beautiful towns lying on the Sound — 
to New Haven, with its colleges, its famous trees, its 
State-house and churches. Thence we drove on, 
passing through Wallingf ord, Meriden, Berlin, to the 
thriving city of Hartford, with its fine streets and 
noble churches; and from thence we passed on 



50 Ijife's Retrospect. 

through Springfield, over Mount Tom, in sight of 
Holyoke; stopping a day or two at the romantic Httle 
village of Bellows Falls, also at Windsor, beneath 
the shadow of Mount Ascutney, until we reached the 
towering, majestic peaks of Mount Washington and 
Lafayette; and all this distance we drove on day by 
day, hour by hour, but did not tire; the endless diver- 
sity of scenery and new objects, the fresh, invigorat- 
ing air as we rode along, the rehsh we had for our 
meals at the neat and comfortable little inns scat- 
tered along the road, far more than compensated us 
for our lengthy travel. But who would think of 
taking such a journey, now, when you may ride in a 
single day or night all this distance in luxurious pal- 
ace-cars ? As we look back over the past to those 
by-gone days, what a mighty contrast it seems 
to present to this day, when in the onward 
march of civilization time and distance are almost 
annihilated; when huge ocean steamers, splendidly 
furnished can cross the water and reach their desti- 
nation in the brief space of seven days; or when we 
may look out upon that wonderful triumph of art and 
science, the Brooklyn Bridge, which may well com- 
mand the admiration of the world. 

2, But another thought impresses me as I take a 
retrospect of life, and that is : the great change 



Life's Retrospect. 51 

which has taken place during that time in the aspect 
of the moral and religious world. Fifty years ago, 
there were few churches, few educational and reli- 
gious institutions. The country was covered with a 
comparatively poor and sparse population. Clergy- 
men, few as they were, were much more appre- 
ciated, however, than they are now. Since that 
time the country has made rapid and wonderful pro- 
gress. States have been multiplied, towns have 
sprung up, all over the land the resources of material 
wealth have increased. Over fifty millions of people 
now dwell where then were but ten or fifteen mil- 
lions. Churches have been multiplied, theological 
seminaries have been established, and everywhere 
Christian temples and schools are to be found. Then, 
a few humble churches, such as the people could 
afford, were to be seen. Now, majestic temples are 
to be found, adorned with all the elegance and taste 
of magnificent architecture. When I think of those 
days of feebleness, those humble beginnings, and 
then glance at the present and think of the varied 
means and agencies, now in active operation, to pro- 
mote the moral and spiritual education of men, to 
diffuse the Gospel's saving truths among the desti- 
tute, the ignorant, and the degraded of our race, I 
cannot but wonder at the marvellous change that 



52 Life's Betrospect, 

has taken place. I cannot but ask what is to be the 
future of this great country — a country which has 
already advanced during a hundred years, from 
three millions to fifty millions of inhabitants, and 
w^hich is large enough to contain four hundred mil- 
lions, with the same population to the square mile 
as Great Britain. • When I look at these blessed 
results, I cannot but take hope for my country. I 
have no sympathy with those downcast looks, those 
■gloomy forebodings which some cherish, aye, even 
;Some Christians, who seem to think that because 
infidelity, and crime, and wickedness prevail ; be- 
cause we hear an occasional outburst of blasphemy 
from some infidel ; or because Romanism lifts its 
head and seeks to dupe the free and enlightened citi- 
zens of this republic, but seeks in vain; or, because 
pohtical bribery and corruption are to be found, that, 
therefore, the Gospel must fail, the world is to be 
given over to sin and Satan, and things generally go 
to pieces. No, no ! away with such a pusillanimous, 
weak faith as that ! Let us act more worthy of the 
noble cause we have in hand, and instead of wasting 
time in vain regrets and desponding thoughts over 
the sad results of evil, let us rather gird up our loins 
afresh, and stand firm as defenders of the truth. 
And this leads me to state one thing more, which 



Life's Retrospect, 53 

the review of the past has most strongly impressed 
upon me, viz., this : 

3. That the older I grow, and the longer I live, the 
more I am convinced of the vast and unspeakable- 
importance of the Bible. It is, emphatically, the 
Book of books. There is nothing which can be sub-- 
stituted for it. It is infallible. It teaches the truth 
concerning a future life, and the relations of that life 
to us, and how we may make that future life a 
happy one. It is our rule of life, our hope in death ; 
placing our faith and trust in the Saviour thereiii 
revealed to us, we may die happy and peaceful. You 
may try to disparage the Bible if you will, or put 
away from you the truth that that book, and that 
book alone, tells you of, namely, your immortality^ 
and how to secure it, but you will be left in darkness^ 
afloat on a sea without chart or compass. 

John Jay, when Ambassador to France, was onco 
in a company of infidels. They talked on recklessly^ 
venting their spite on the Bible ; Jay was silent ; it 
troubled them. He did not pronounce their shib- 
boleth. They could not go on, while that grave, just 
man sat there, a sort of solemn judge, riveting at last 
their gaze. No wonder his bearing forced them to 
speak, and when they asked, as if to relieve them- 



54 Life's Retrospect, 

selves of their confusion, and provoke his acquies- 
cence, '' Do you beheve in Jesus Christ ?" his silence 
had prepared the way for his confusing and con- 
founding answer : '' 1 do, and I thank God that I do." 
He was silent at the right time, and when he spoke 
said the right thing. 



VII. 

Allow me in the following letter to lay before 
yon a few pen-pictnres of life and character which 
it has been my privilege to know and admire. 
Looking back over the past, I will endeavor to draw 
them as they stand in memory's portrait gallery. 

I. The first shall be that of John Jay — the pure, 
noble patriot and Christian statesman; the friend 
and associate and co-laborer of Washington; the 
stanch defender of truth and right ; the man of stern 
principle and incorruptible moral integrity, both in 
public and private life. How his character looms 
up, like a bright star in the political horizon, reflect- 
ing glory and lustre on his name and rebuking the 
selfish political corruption and bribery of this degen- 
erate age. I remember well — though then but a 
small lad — the open, serene, placid countenance of 
John Jay, as he sat at his family fireside, in the 
old family mansion, at Bedford, in the State of 
New York. His noble and impressive features, fine 
forehead, bright eye, his intellectual cast of coun- 
55 



56 Chief 'Justice John Jay. 

tenance and polite, engaging manners, could not 
but impress the beholder at once. You could see 
there intellectual greatness combined with the mod- 
esty and humility of the Christian. As a statesman, 
he was distinguished for his intellectual force and 
political sagacity. In all the high positions to whick 
he was called — as guide and counselor with other 
eminent patriots and statesmen of the Revolution; 
as author of the State Constitution of 1777, and as 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States ; as Ambassador to foreign courts, in trying 
and difficult periods of the history of the country ; 
as Governor of the State of New York — in all these 
positions of trust and power John Jay shone pre-^ 
eminently as a man of far-reaching political wisdom 
and incorruptible moral integrity. What a bright 
and illustrious example does he present to the men 
in power of this day ? Would to God that more 
might follow him as their model. In the domestic 
relations of life, too, as an excellent father and wise 
counselor of his children, he was a rare model. Dr. 
A. H. Stephens, an eniment physician of New York,, 
once said: ^'I was summoned to Bedford to visit, 
professionally, the overseer of Governor Jay's farm ; 
after having finished my duties at the farm-house 
I went, by invitation, to the mansion of the vener^ 



Chief -Justice John Jay, 57 

able statesman. That the seeds of evil implanted 
in our nature have not borne more and ranker fruit 
in the speaker, I owe to that night's rest under the 
roof of that honored family. When tempted sorely 
to evil, I recall the scene in the family parlor of the 
venerable patriarch, his children and household, and 
those within his gates, uniting in thanksgiving, con- 
fession and prayer. Sir, it was more like heaven 
upon earth than anything I ever witnessed or con- 
ceived. It was worth more than all the sermons I 
ever listened to." 

John Jay was a devout, exemplary member of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, believing it to be 
most evangelical and scriptural. He gave liberally 
of his means for its support. Indeed, more than 
half the cost of the erection of St. Matthew's 
Church, at Bedford, was borne by him. But, while 
he loved his own church, and participated in its^ 
worship every Lord's Day, as long as he was not 
prevented by age and increasing infirmities, he ever 
manifested a kindly sympathy and regard for all 
other Christian bodies, having little or no respect, 
however, for the idle ceremonies and arrogant and 
corrupt teachings of the Romish Church and priest- 
hood. I have still, as memory wanders back to 
those eventful times, a most distinct and beautiful 



58 Chief-Justice John Jay, 

impression of John Jay surrounded by his children 
at the old Bedford home — all bound to each other by 
the tie of deep unselfish love. It was a beautiful 
sight to behold, as the members of that household 
vied with each other in bestowing httle acts of kind- 
ness, and a watchful sympathy over their aged and 
honored father. There were those two Christian 
sisters — his daughters, Mrs. Banyer and Miss Ann 
Jay — whose pure lives and noble deeds of mercy and 
charity have been bequeathed, a rich heritage, to 
the Church on earth. There, too, was an honored 
son of John Jay, the late William Jay, who enjoyed, 
during his lifetime, the well-deserved reputation of 
an able advocate and learned judge, who died in 
the Christian faith, and whose dust reposes now, 
along with others of his family, beside the old parish 
church of St. Matthew. These lives, spent in the 
seclusion and retirement of this Christian home and 
in active efforts to relieve the poor and afflicted, 
their spiritual labors and works of charity, which 
were done, in a quiet way, for the benefit of the 
widow, and orphan, and destitute missionary — these 
present a bright and interesting record, and form 
a fitting close to that eventful life which took place 
May 17th, 1829. Thus lived and died John Jay, 
the friend and associate of Washington, having 




THE KT. REV. THOMAS CHURCH BROWNELL, D.D., LL.D., ( 

Thibd Bishop of Connecticut. 



Bishop BrotvnelL 59 

borne a noble part in the formation of this great 
Repubhc, honored and lamented by the whole coun- 
try, whose respect and confidence he had so richly 
enjoyed during his lifetime. 

II. I will briefly touch upon the life and character 
of Dr. Thomas C. Brownell, Bishop of the Diocese of 
Connecticut, for forty-six years, and engaged in 
active service during that period, with the exception 
of a few years previous to his death, which occurred 
January 13th, 1865, at the advanced age of eighty- 
five years. During his episcopate, the Episcopal 
Church made rapid advances in Connecticut, there 
being at the time of his entrance upon office but 
seven self - supporting parishes, and thirty - four 
clergymen. These, at the time of his death, had 
increased to ninety parishes, and one hundred and 
thirty clergymen. Few bishops have fulfilled their 
sacred trust, and discharged the high duties of 
their sacred office, with more zeal, devotion and 
wisdom than good Bishop Brownell. To the varied 
gifts of human learning and theological attain- 
ments of the highest order, he united the most 
ardent piety and spiritual devotion, together with 
all the kindness, and courtesy, and affectionate 
regard, and personal interest in his clergy, which 



^0 Bishop Brownell. 

make a bishop so acceptable. It fell to the lot of 
the writer to be under the supervisor! of Bishop 
Brownell for a period of ten years, during his 
active ministry in various fields of labor in Con- 
necticut. I frequently look back with the utmost 
satisfaction and pleasure to my intercourse with 
him. He always manifested a most friendly and 
affectionate regard for me, took great pains to see 
that I was usefully occupied in some field of parish 
work, and rejoiced to know that my labors were 
successful. He did not wait for his clergy to come 
to him, but he sought them out, and kept them 
engaged in useful fields of labor, and soon made 
every one of his clergy feel that he was their best 
friend, as well as their bishop. No considerations of 
personal dignity or ecclesiastical honor could make- 
him forget the welfare, or be indifferent to the 
wishes or wants, of those over whom he was set ta 
watch as their spiritual overseer. 

The name of Bishop Brownell. and the memory of 
his life and deeds, will be fragrant in the Church 
during the ages to come. He was strongly attached 
to his own Church and faith, and lived and toiled 
and labored incessantly to promote its best welfare. 
But none ever heard him speak otherwise than with 
the kindest Christia,n feeling and courtesy toward 



Hon, John A, Lott. 61 

all other Christian bodies. One has only to read his 
work called " The Religion of the Heart and Life/' 
in which he quotes largely from eminent Presby- 
terian ministers, to see how highly he esteemed 
them. Such was the character of Bishop Brownell. 

III. But I proceed to give a brief sketch of one 
more character whom it was my privilege to meet 
with and know well, viz., the late Hon. John A. 
Lett, long one of the judges of the Supreme Court 
in Brooklyn, and also a judge of the Court of 
Appeals in the State of New York, one of the 
highest judicial offices of that great State. It is 
scarcely necessary to say much of the high standing 
and character of Judge Lott. He was too well 
known to require it. Suffice it to say he was a great 
lawyer and a great judge, and filled all the high 
positions of office and public trust to which he was 
called, with distinguished ability and success. He 
was not only a learned judge, distinguished for his 
marked ability, industry and accurate knowledge of 
the law, but he was a good man — good as he was 
great — active and zealous in the service of the 
Church to which he belonged, and gave liberally of 
his means to promote its welfare. In the beautiful 
rural village of Flatbush, which lies just out of 



^ 



62 Hon. John A, Lott, 

Brooklyn, adjoining Prospect Park, there stands on^ 
the main avenue, which runs through the centre of 
the town, the plain house which was long the home 
and residence of Judge Lott and his family. His 
two sons occupy stately, fine residences near him, 
and his son-in-law, Rev. Dr. C. L. Wells, lives in 
the parsonage of the Dutch Church near by. I shall 
not soon forget the exceeding kindness, the genial 
temper and most hospitable, pleasant manner of 
the judge as I have made occasional visits with 
my wife (she being related to him) at that home just 
described. 

It was an exceedingly pleasant drive from our 
Brooklyn home through the shaded roadways of 
the park, in sight of flowering shrubs and dog- wood 
blossoms, into the pretty village of Platbush — past 
the venerable old Dutch Church, with its tall spire 
peering through the trees, to the pleasant residence 
of the judge. Nothing could exceed the kind, cor- 
dial reception given to us by him and his excellent 
lady; and as memory wanders back, we love to 
recall those pleasant hours. Although these dear 
friends no longer greet us with their presence and 
kindly words, sleeping silently beneath the shades of 
Greenwood, yet we love still to think of them, not 
as lost, but only gone before. 



VIIL 

The three sweetest words in the Enghsh tongue ^ 
it has been justly said, are '' mother/' '' home/' and 
'^heaven." To the first attaches a peculiar charm. 
It is associated with all the early years of childhood, 
with all the numberless little acts of kindness and 
love, with all the cares, anxieties and unwearied 
watchings of the domestic household; no earthly tie 
or bond is stronger than that of mother's love, 
especially if it be that of a Christian mother's love. 
It stretches and weaves its silken cords around the 
heart, from the cradle to the grave, and awakens a 
responsive echo in the heart amid all the cares and 
perplexing turmoils of life. 

* * My mother ! at that holy name 
Within my bosom there's a gush 
Of feeling which no time can tame, 
And which for many worlds of fame 
I would not, could not, crush. ^' 

There's no human heart so incrusted by worldliness 
or so hardened by sin and crime as not to feel the 
thrilling power of that word ''mother." Were you 
63 



64 The Author's Mother, 

to speak to the poor, hardened criminal, bound by 
Ms chains in his lonely dungeon, of that sainted 
mother who once taught him to pray and say, " Our 
Father, which art in heaven," you would find that 
€ven he had a place, down deep in his heart, conse- 
crated to a mother's memory. He would doubtless 
bow in contrition, and tears would flow down his 
haggard face, as you carried back his thoughts to the 
days of his childhood, when he once laid his innocent 
head on his mother's bosom. If we look back over 
the world's history we shall find that most of the 
great and good names and characters which have 
adorned the world and the Church have owed a vast 
deal to the influence of good mothers. What John 
Wesley was is owing, and can be traced, to the influ- 
•ence and power of a Christian mother's teaching 
and example. John Newton also received his train- 
ing and Christian instruction at the hands of a 
good mother; and though he was afterward led astray 
and often surrounded by evil influences, yet those 
early maternal counsels prevailed and kept him iik 
the right path. Listen to the following testim.ony 
from another : " When I was a child," he writes, 
^^ my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and 
place her hand upon my head while she prayed. 
Before I was old enough to know her worth she died, 



The Author's Mother. Qb 

and I was left too much to my own guidance. In the 
midst of temptations, whether at home or abroad, I 
have felt myself again and again irresistibly drawn 
back by the pressure of that same soft hand, and a 
voice in my heart seemed to say, " Oh ! do not this 
wickedness, my child, nor sin against God." Such 
is the power and influence of a Christian mother. 
We all respond to those beautiful lines of a world- 
wide fame : 

** *Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roaio, 
Be it ever so humble, there*s no place like home; 
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, 
"Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere." 

But what is home without a mother ? It is a tree 
without leaves, a hearthstone without any fire, a 
night without the placid radiance of the moonbeams. 
I have introduced the foregoing thoughts by way of 
prelude to the following picture here given from 
memory's portrait gallery — that of my mother. She 
was born on January 4th, 1799, in New York city, 
and was the daughter of George James Warner, a 
jeweler by trade, and also a man of taste and educa- 
tion. His residence was a small, neat cottage, and 
stood on the Bowery, not far from Bleecker Street, 
while that of his father, George Warner, stood a lit- 



66 The Author's Mother. 

tie further up, on what is now the corner of Bowery 
and Fourth Street. These then were country-seats 
of men doing business down-town, below what is now 
called Canal Street, which was then the outer limit 
of the city. Her mother was a daughter of Elias 
Nexsen, one of the old, most respected merchants of 
New York city, who was first Collector of the Port, 
and a prominent leader in the Dutch Church. She 
was thus brought up under the eyes of Christian 
parents, and early taught the truths of our holy 
religion. The family consisted of two sisters and a 
brother, all united by the tender ties of family affec- 
tion. The unbroken union, however, was but of 
short continuance, for at the early age of seven years 
her father died, and she was left in the care of the 
widowed mother. Her character was shaped and 
molded, to a great extent, through her grandfather, 
George Warner, who owned the famous ^^old sail 
loft," in William Street, New York, in which the 
British pressed him to make sails for the English 
ships during the war of the Revolution; but he would 
not. He was also an eminently devoted and religious 
character. Of the other members of the family, her 
sister married Thomas Murphy, of New York, and 
died, leaving several children, one of whom, John 
McLeod Murphy, was State Senator from New York. 



The Author's Mother. 67 

His brother, the late Effingham H. Warner, was a 
prominent public man, and while a member of the 
Connnon Council of the city, he projected and was 
instrumental in carrying through the establishment 
of Union Park, and other city improvements. He 
was the founder of St. Bartholomew's Church, and 
his grandfather's coat-of-arms stood over the door of 
entrance to the first church built in Lafayette Place. 
He married a sister of the celebrated Methodist 
preacher, John Summerfield, a woman of great per- 
sonal charms and highly cultivated intellect, who 
possessed many of the tender qualities, and religious 
and lovely traits of her illustrious brother. She died 
March 13th, 1878, leaving an interesting family. 
One of her daughters married the Rev. A. McLean, 
a minister doing active and useful service in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Soon after my 
mother's marriage, a new field of duty and labor 
opened before her, as she moved soon after that 
event to the village of Bedford, in the State of New 
York, where my father became rector of the Epis- 
copal Church, and continued there in the faithful 
discharge of ministerial duties for the space of 
twenty-two years. I scarcely dare trust myself to 
speak of that beautiful, sweet and holy life which 
my mother led during all those years — how faithful 



68 The Author's Mother. 

and true she was, a help-meet to her husband, sharing' 
with him all the trials and disappointments which fall 
to a minister's lot, faithfully training and instruct- 
ing her household and family in the principles 
of our holy religion, setting them a pure example, 
molding their Christian characters, watching over 
them in sickness, and soothing them with words of 
kindness and love, and ever acting toward her fam- 
ily the part of a true Christian mother — a mother 
whose memory will be sweet and precious to her 
children all the coming years. Not only was she 
faithful and true as a wife and mother, but faithful 
as a follower of Christ, and co-worker with Him in 
labors of love; being intimately associated in many 
noble deeds of charity and works of Christian benev- 
olence with such eminent and pure women as Mrs. 
Banyer, and Miss Ann Jay, Mrs. Judge William Jay, 
and others, belonging to the parish of Bedford. Oh! 
how often, as I have since journeyed along life's 
toilsome road, in sunshine and storm, does mem- 
ory recall the modest, quiet little parsonage where 
my childhood was spent. It was the scene of 
many childish sports. There I often strolled by 
moonlight, through the apple orchard, and plucked 
the delicious fruit from the trees, or went down the 
lane to the river's bank to angle for perch and sunfish, 



The Axtthors Mother. 69 

or sat with my book on the moss-covered rock at the 
"base of an old miountain which still bore its Indian 
name, " Aspetong/' which always looked interest- 
ing, whether dressed in the light verdure of the bud- 
ding year, or draped in the thick green of ripe 
Summer, or gorgeous with Autumn's golden hues, or 
Winter's snowy robe of white. I often now imagine 
myself standing beneath that mountain, beside the 
familiar stream which ran along its base, meander- 
ing among green bushes and trees, and rich meadows, 
with the dear old parsonage in the distance, and just 
a little beyond it the church, with its towers and 
cupola peering through the forest trees, surrounded 
with its burying-ground — an omnipresent witness of 
human mortality — its marble monuments telling the 
same story amid Summer and Winter, by sunlight 
and by starlight, and its flowers blooming there, 
emblematic of a life to come. Amid all the remem- 
brances of childhood and that home in the parson- 
age, I can recall none so interesting as the picture 
engraven on my heart of that mother who once lived 
there, moved round with her pleasant look and smile 
amid the family group, lived there the life of faith 
and prayer, knelt morning and evening at the family 
altar, joining in the devotions after the chapter was 
read in the Bible, and lifting her voice in one of two 



70 



The Author's Mother, 



sacred hymns which were sung at the family altar 
for half a century; the one commencing with the 
words: 

" The day is past and gone, 
The evening shades appear, 
Oh ! may we all remember well 
The night of death draws near.'' 



The other : 



' Blessed be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love, 
The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is Hke to that above." 



About the year 1841 my father's health became 
Impaired, so that he was obliged to procure assist- 
ance in his clerical duties, and the Rev. A. H. Part- 
ridge was appointed to fill that position. Soon after, 
my father resigned the rectorship of St. Matthew's, 
Bedford. Mr. Partridge was called to succeed him, 
and remained in charge of that church for a period 
of sixteen years. After a useful pastorate in build- 
ing up the church and organizing some new 
churches in the county, Mr. Partridge received and 
accepted a call to Christ Church, Williamsburg; L. I. 
Here he was a devoted and most successful minister. 
The large and elegant church on Bedford Avenue 
was built through his instrumentality, and, after a 
career of great usefulness and success, he died, much 



The Author's Mother. 71 

lamented by his people. After leaving Bedford, 
about the year 1841, my mother spent the remaining 
years of her life at Greenfield Hill, Conn. , the home 
of her husband's ancestors. Here the family had a 
Summer residence, and often spent their Winters 
either in New York city or in Brooklyn. During the 
years spent at Greenfield she always exhibited the 
same loving tenderness and regard for her family, 
the same faithful devotion to household duties; 
much of her leisure time was spent either in reading 
good books or the cultivation of flowers and plants, 
of which she was passionately fond. The roses and 
flowering shrubs which adorned the pathways of her 
charming home were planted by her hands. The 
Winter of 1872, which was the last Winter of my 
mother's earthly sojourn, was spent at her city home 
on Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn. Everything which 
loving children and kind friends could suggest was 
done to add to her comfort and prolong her life, but 
it was evident that she was declining in health; she 
had lost that bright eye and sprightliness of manner 
which belonged to her; her bodily illness assumed 
constantly a more discouraging aspect, until, at 
length, in the stormy, dreary month of March, not- 
withstanding all the advice and best skill of two able 
physicians, she fell asleep with hands clasped 



72 The Author's Mother. 

together as if in the attitude of prayer and resigna- 
tion. Ah ! it was a sad and dreary hour in that 
Lafayette Avenue home when my mother closed her 
eyes and we were left alone without a mother. 
Without a mother ! Oh, what a chasm I how diffi- 
cult to fill ! what a separation of a most tender tie ! 
"What can we do in such an hour of bereavement but 
strive with faith's discerning eye to look above, 
beyond. There is, blessed be God, a silver lining to 
the dark, overhanging clouds — a heaven on the other 
side — a home where partings are not known, and 
where the scattered members of the household may 
be gathered at last in one eternal communion and 
fellowship. 

** Oh ! sweet and blessed country, 

The home of God's elect ! 
Oh ! Eweet and blessed country, 

Which eager hearts expect ! 
Jesus, in mercy bring us 

To that dear land of rest, 
Who art, with God the Father 

And Spirit, ever blessed." 



IZ. 



In a previous letter, I remarked, that, in view of 
the retrospect of life, one thought, which impressed 
itself with much force upon my mind, was, the very 
great and growing importance of the Bible. As this» 
subject has elicited more than usual attention of late, 
especially since the publication of Rev. Heber New- 
ton's sermons on '' The Right and Wrong Uses of 
the Bible,'' it may not be amiss to devote this present 
letter to a few thoughts upon this most important 
subject. And the first thought that strikes us, a& 
we enter upon the subject, is this, viz. : that there 
can be nothing more self-evident than the absolute 
necessity of a divine revelation, to an intelligent and 
immortal being like man, to teach him the correct 
knowledge of God, and of human duty and destiny ? 
What am I ? What is my destiny ? How am I re- 
lated to God and the rest of the universe ? These 
are questions which must arise in every thoughtful 
mind, and in order to be answered intelligibly and 
correctly, require a revelation from the Creator and 
Author of our being. Nature is silent, the light of 
73 



74 The Holy Bible. 

reason and conscience within us gives but snght inti- 
mations of the future and our immortality. Unless 
God teach us the things of God and the future condi- 
tion of our race, we can know little upon these sub- 
jects. If the fact that we are immortal be not 
revealed to us, by a Being who knows and who 
cannot lie, then we are in darkness; then we float 
anxiously on a sea of doubt and uncertainty, and 
descend at last into the shades of an endless night. 
But blessed be God ! we have such a revelation, 
telling of the great future; telling us of God, our 
Father and Creator, and our relations to Him and 
the universe; telling us of the gradual unfolding 
and development of the great scheme of human 
redemption through a Divine Saviour. It contains 
God's revealed will to us. It speaks to us on its every 
page, telling us how we may escape the guilt and 
misery of sin and be restored to the divine favor and 
immortal happiness in the life to come. But another 
thought arises. By what evidence is this revelation 
upheld and sustained ? To this we reply: 

1. It is sustained by the evidence of miracles, that 
is, supernatural exhibitions of divine power — such, 
for example, as the raising of the dead to life, 
the healing of bodily diseases by a single word, 
the creation of food miraculously, like manna, for the 



The Holy Bible. , 75 

Israelites, the opening of the solid rock, causing the 
waters to flow and thus quenching their thirst. All 
these were acts of Divinity, and were actually true. 
Do you suppose that Moses could have persuaded 
half a million of people that they were fed by a 
miraculous power from the clouds, or that the water 
actually gushed out from the rock, if it were not 
actually so ? 

Jesus stilled the raging tempest. He raised the 
dead Lazarus from the grave. He put his hand on 
the bier and the only son of the widow of Nain rose 
to life at His bidding. Think you that Lazarus's 
sisters and the multitude of Jews there assembled, 
could have been made to believe that Lazarus 
actually came forth alive from the sepulchre, if he 
did not ? But again : 

2. This Divine Book is sustained by the evidence 
of prophecy. 

The prophets of the Old Testament foretold events 
that should happen hundreds of years afterward, 
with the utmost minuteness and particularity; such 
as the coming of Christ, the time, place, mode and 
manner of His birth, also the circumstances of His 
death. The prophets also foretold the overthrow and 
destruction of Tyre, Nineveh, Jerusalem, the fall 
and dispersion of the Jews. Now, as no mere 



76 The Holy Bible. 

human foresight could look thousands of ages ahead 
and tell what was to happen, there can be but one 
conclusion, and that is, that the Bible is divine. You 
have only to compare ancient prophecy with modern 
history to be convinced of this. But 

3. There is one more evidence of which we will 
speak, namely the experimental one; and this is, 
perhaps, the strongest and the best, for the truth of 
the Bible. "Whoever studies that Divine Book with 
faith and prayer, and an earnest desire and wish to 
be enlightened and saved by its truth, will be con- 
vinced that it is divine. He will have such a convic- 
tion that it is from above, as no cunning syllogisms 
of infidels or skeptics will be able to shake or laugh 
out of him. There is many a poor, unlettered and 
humble individual who possesses this internal evi- 
dence of the truth of God. He has never read any 
book on evidence; he has never heard of Paley, or 
Butler, or Chalmers; he knows nothing, it may be, 
of what learned divines and great philosophers have 
written on these subjects; and yet, he has in his own 
heart, a most eloquent and a ceaseless witness, that 
the Bible is God's book, and inspired by His divine 
Spirit. He was once a sinner, now his heart is 
changed by the grace of God. He was once sad and 
miserable, now he rejoices in God. He has believed 



The Holy Bible. 77 

and trusted in the promises of that Divine Book, and 
they have comforted him and given him hope. He 
has obeyed those divine counsels, and his footsteps 
have been enlightened. Now this is a species of 
evidence the very strongest and best. It cannot be 
overturned, and is capable of withstanding all 
assaults. Such a person feels within himself the 
transforming power of the Gospel, and knows by a 
consciousness within him, surer than argument, and 
clearer than logic, that he believes on the Son of 
God, and that the religion he professes is inspired of 
God. And, furthermore, we may remark that this 
Divine Book of God, which comes to us sustained 
and upheld by such a weight of testimony, is God's 
greatest and best gift to man, for it is infallibly 
true, N"ow this is just what we all need, an infal- 
lible guide to life eternal. Either it is infallible or 
it is nothing. If it has God for its Author, and 
comes from Him, then it is infallible. And here lies 
one of the chief characteristics of the vast superiority 
and importance of the Bible. 

When the Romanist says to me: ^^ We are the 
oldest Church, and the only Church; you should 
receive the Bible as we interpret it," I beg leave to 
reply: " You are not the oldest Church, nor the only 
Church. There is the Greek Church, from which 



78 The Holy Bible. 

you separated, and there is the Anglo-Saxon Church,, 
in England, which existed there before a popish 
monk or priest ever came there. Besides, you 1 3ach 
false dogmas, heresies and superstitions, such as 
transubstantiation, priestly absolution, clerical celib- 
acy, the adoration of the Virgin Mary, of saints 
and images — all of which receive no countenance in 
God's Word. No, I want no such error and super-^ 
stition. Give us the Bible pure, unadulterated, 
divine, infallible.'^ I stick to that from Genesis to 
Revelation. It is God's greatest and best gift to 
man. It is the anchorage-ground of all our Churches, 
and by it they stand or fall. That Church which is 
nearest to and most conformed to its divine sanctions 
will assuredly triumph in the end. Let us keep the 
Bible in our churches, our homes, our public schools. 
Let us remember that the welfare of this free and 
glorious republic of ours is closely bound up with 
the Bible. All its civil institutions and its govern- 
ment are founded on it. Without its divine sanc- 
tions, no civil government, no courts of justice, 
could exist. Most opportune and proper was that 
late commemoration of the birth of Martin Luther, 
who exposed the dismal darkness of papal Rome, 
and restored the lost treasure of the sacred Scrip- 
tures; for out of that Divine Book have come the 



The Holy Bible. 79 

mighty influences which have made this country 
what it is to-day. God be thanked for the glo- 
rious work which this great man has wrought. 
Far distant be that dreadful day when this land of 
ours, which our forefathers founded in tears and 
blood on the broad foundations of civil and religious 
liberty, shall lose its hold on the Bible, For if we 
lose our hold on that, then all is lost. 



X 



In the following letter it will be my aim to present 
some brief recollections of a Summer vacation in 
the beautiful town, or rather, I should say, capital 
city, of the State of Vermont, Montpelier ; and also 
to give some reminiscences of a similar period passed, 
in the Summer of 1876, at Great Barrington, Mass., 
amidst the striking scenery of the Berkshire hills. 
These are both spots of surpassing interest, and 
a Summer sojourn in either place cannot soon be 
forgotten. 

First. — It was in the month of July, in the year 
1874, that I set out in company with my wife, for 
the first-named place, Montpelier, Vt. The streets 
of the city of Brooklyn were hot, dry and dusty, for 
the burning rays of the sun beat down with great 
force on the stone pavement making the air oppres- 
sive and stifling ; and we were glad to escape from 
the heat and dust of the city, and exchange them for 
the cooling and invigorating breezes of Long Island 
80 



A Summer Vacation. 81 

Sound. It was a delightful change, as we sat on the 
steamer's deck viewing the various objects of inter- 
est along the shore ; now catching a glimpse of the 
buildings on Blackwell's Island, and of the rough 
waters of Hell Gate, and now taking a view of Fort 
Schuyler, Sand's-Point Light, and the towns, with 
their church-spires, which line the coast of Connecti- 
cut. A few hours brought us to the City of Bridge- 
port, where we took the cars for Hartford. We 
spent one night in this thriving and attractive city 
— noted for its fine residences, hospitable homes, 
splendid church edifices and other public buildings, 
and its Trinity College — and then proceeded, next 
morning, by the cars of the Hartford and Springfield 
and Vermont Central Railroad, to the little romantic 
village of Bellows Falls. We were so much charmed 
with this place that we concluded to tarry here for a 
week or ten days. The scenery here is wild and 
striking to a remarkable degree. The Falls tumble 
in wild confusion over the huge massive rocks which 
lie embedded in the river. You look up from the 
street below, and gaze in wonder at the rough, 
cragged steeps and rocky ledges which intervene 
between you and the embankment above, on which 
some of the dwellings stand. The beautiful Gothic 
Episcopal church, in which Bishop Carlton Chase 



82 A Summer Vcu^ation. 

preached many vears. stands on one of the heights 
just mentioned, smromided by a grove of pines. I 
preached in it. by the kindly request of the rector, 
on the Sunday following. We formed some very 
pleasant acquaintances during our stay at the neat 
and comfortable hotel, with whon: ' t ::::ri reluc- 
tantly, and proceeded to the place c»f our destination, 
Monrpelier. This is a most ~iful and attractive 

city, c : ::" ining about 1-2. OOO inhabitants. Its build- 
ing- a: T. ri.a::v of them, of a most substantial char- 
acter, built 01 g^ay granite. The Episcopal church. 
of which the Ee^, 1)1. Hail was the rector, is a very 
handsome an a :e: al oran'^e strucrore. The Con- 
gregational Clijacn IS much the largest edifice, hav- 
ing four tow^ers, and consuming, it is said something 
like a ton of coal every Simday. Of all the pubKc 
buildings, however, ^^hich adorn the city, none can 
compare in point of beauty and inipressiveness — none 
is so chaste and elegant as the State House, bmlt of 
the purest white marble. It stands at the head of a 
spacious green lawn, contarns the PubKc Armory, 
the Hall, smnptuously furnished, for the House of 
Representatives and State Senate. PubKc Library, etc. 
We took up our abode at the American House, 
being most kindly cared for by the exceUent proprie- 
tor and his wife. Here we found some very agree- 



A Summer Vacation. 83 

uble and excellent society. Among others, an Epis- 
copal clergyman, and his lady and young daugnter^ 
who had come from Brooklyn, and finding that they 
could live here with every comfort at about one-third 
the expense, they had made it their permanent home. 
We took frequent excursions together around the 
city, and climbed the tall mountains which surround 
it, from which you can see in the distance the rugged 
sides and majestic peak of Mount Mansfield. We 
were often brought together, as the doors of the^ 
rooms of guests opened out upon the second-story 
piazza, where we sat for hours conversing and look- 
ing out upon the street, enlivened with gay equip- 
ages. Thus passed away the weeks of our Summer 
vacation, between books and rambles and kind, 
pleasant intercourse of new-made friends, until, at 
last we bade adieu to familiar faces and started back 
with our own horse and carriage, just purchased for 
the occasion — a journey of more than four hundred 
miles through the many villages and towns which lie 
along the banks of the Connecticut River, and 
through the States of Vermont, Massachusetts and 
Connecticut. That was a long, delightful and most 
health-giving journey from the mountains of Ver- 
mont to our home in Brooklyn, and we never for- 
got it. 



84 A Summer Vacation. 

Second. — Let us now proceed to give our readers 
some brief sketches of a second Summer vaca- 
tion spent by us in the town of Great Barrington, 
Mass. Of all the towns, I ever visited, I must say 
I never saw one which strikes the eye so pleasantly 
as this. Its wide main avenue is lined with many 
superb residences, and is overshadowed with the 
tall, graceful elms which constitute the pride and 
^ornament of New England villages. A little way off 
irom the avenue is the Collins House, with its cot- 
1;ages for guests, than which it would be difficult to 
find a more comfortable and pleasant home for trav- 
elers. Here we made our abode and enjoyed the 
society of some very pleasant companions, guests of 
the house from the City of Xew York. Among 
others, we received one day a very pleasant visit 
from Miss Kellogg, then the sole occupant of the 
Sherwood mansion, who extended to us a polite 
invitation to take tea at her house. We did so, and 
were most agreeably entertained by her polite and 
intelligent conversation. I felt a peculiar interest in 
visiting this house, as I had often heard my father 
speak of Mr. Sherwood and his successful and 
remarkable history. He was born in the same town 
with my father, in a very humble dwelling, and 
started forth to carve his fortune, with little or no 



A Summer Vacation. 85 

means and little prospect of success. Being nat- 
urally fond of books^ he applied himself with great 
industry to the study of the English branches, as 
well as Latin classics, moved to the City of New 
York and proceeded to establish there a school for 
the education of young men, and soon became known 
throughout the city as a most worthy teacher and 
instructor of youth. After a successful career as 
a public teacher and scholar for many years, Mr. 
Sherwood moved from the city to Great Barring- 
ton, where he had married his wife, who, with her 
sisters, had conducted there one of the most cele- 
brated female schools in New England. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Sherwood were ardent promoters of educa- 
tion, and we may almost say pioneers, as Mr. Sher- 
wood's classical school was one of the earliest insti- 
tutions in the City of New York ; and the female 
school also, of Great Barrington, dates back through 
a period of many years. In this pleasant mansion^ 
which I might almost say is classical ground, Mr. 
Sherwood brought up an interesting family, among 
whom were two engaging and accomplished daugh- 
ters. One of them married a Mr. Chittenden, of St„ 
Louis — a successful merchant, a man of large means 
and great influence. She died a few years since 
while travelling abroad for health. The other daugh- 



86 A Suiumer Vacation. 

ter married the famous railroad manager, Mark Hop- 
Mns, of San Francisco, who died recently, leaving 
an estate of $10,000,000. She now resides in the 
TQagnificent residence built by her husband previous 
to his death, and we learn from the papers, more 
recently, that this worthy lady has borne the greater 
part of the expense of erecting a new and elegant 
Congregational church on the site of the old one, 
burned about a year since. 

Knowing, as I did, all these facts and historic inci- 
dents in the life of Mr. Sherwood, as narrated to me 
l)y my father, and knowing, too, that he had often 
spoken with great interest of his friend as a play- 
mate and school-companion, I could not but feel a 
deep interest in the old mansion. It still remains as 
a Summer residence of Mrs. Hopkins, and must no 
doubt be highly prized by her as the home of her 
father and mother — rich in family historical associa- 
tions. I shall be pardoned in this connection in add- 
ing a brief description of this beautiful church, so 
richly endowed, and an ornament to the town. It is 
l)uilt upon the site of the former edifice, and is 
trinamed with Portland brown-stone. Connected 
with the church is a large chapel, having the usual 
parlors and libraries, and joined by a long stone cor- 
ridor to a parsonage, in the rear of which is a fine 



A Summer Vacation, 87 

tarn. The windows are of the best design in stained 
and painted glass ; two of them cost $2^,000. The 
chandeliers are also costly and beautiful ; the pulpit 
is of the finest mahogany, and the organ cost $30,000. 
The parsonage is a two-story house, with a hand- 
some portico and arch; in front is a Dutch door, a 
large hall with old open English grates, a parlor, a 
study, opening from which is the corridor running 
to the chapel ; also, a light and cheery dining-room 
opening to the east, a conservatory, kitchen, etc. 
The entire cost of all the buildings is estimated at 
little more than $102,000. This is, indeed, a noble 
praiseworthy offering of a Christian heart, and an 
example worthy of imitation. Would that more 
could be found to do as much for the Church of their 
affections. I have often since looked back and 
thought with pleasure of that Summer visit at Great 
Barrington, Mass. 



XI 



In a former letter I dwelt at some length upon the 
importance of the Bible. I little dreamed, Mr. Edi- 
tor, I should ever live to see the day when a man of 
genius and intellectual ability, in view of the power- 
ful and unanswerable evidence which upholds the 
Christian religion, as set forth in the inspired Word 
of God, could so belittle himself, and prostitute his 
noble faculties, as to employ them in the vain 
attempt to beleaguer and overthrow the Bible — 
God's greatest and best gift to man ; the book which 
has done more for the human race than any and all 
other books put together; more to shape the legisla- 
tion, and improve the morals, and develop the high- 
est style of civilization in man; more to enUghten 
ignorance, dispel doubt and fear, by drawing aside 
the curtain of the Eternal World, and unveiling the 
glories of Heaven, shining on his pathway to the 
grave ; more to comfort the sorrowing and suffering 
and give trust and triumph to the dying. May the 
good Lord deliver us from any such base and ignoble 
mission as that of outraging the sense and Christian 



The Bible and the Church. 89 

feeling of the whole civilized world, and unhinging- 
faith in the existence of God and a future life ; for I 
can conceive of no calamity which could befall this> 
suffering and sorrowing world like that of the gen- 
eral loosening and destruction of men's faith in the 
Bible. To seal up the pages of God's divine book, 
and quench its heavenly light, were to spread dark- 
ness and despair. It were to drape the earth in 
mourning, and put an end to the only redemptive 
agency of the human race. Take away everything 
else, but oh ! take not the divine book which in early 
years was so often read to us by saintly lips of loved 
parents now sealed in the silence of the grave. Take 
not the book whose very words have a familiar and 
solemn tone, known to no others ; which have been, 
preached from the pulpit ; which have been repeated 
in the sanctuary, at the bridal and the burial ; whose 
sentences have awakened a reverential awe and fear 
in our hearts ever since the lisping days of childhood, 
and are graven on the tombstones of our dead whom 
we hope to meet again. No ! no ! 

But, there is another thing, also, which I little 
dreamed I should ever live to see, and that is, any 
clergyman criticising the Bible; and, instead of 
receiving it as an authentic, inspired and har- 
monious whole, independent of reason and human 



^0 The Bible and the Church, 

knowledge, and bowing to it implicitly as of divine 
authority, presuming to cheapen the character of 
its inspiration, and so detract from that full awe 
and reverence in which it should be held, turn- 
ing it into allegories, and stories, and national 
traditions, instead of divine, unalterable, historic 
records, and thus unsettling the faith and minds 
of Christians, and disturbing the repose of the 
Church. I had always, Mr. Editor, supposed that 
every orthodox Church took it for granted that the 
Scriptures were divine and authentic ; and the busi- 
ness of a minister was to preach the Gospel and the 
sacred truths of God's divine word as there laid 
down and inculcated, not to exercise his puny reason 
by sitting in judgment on the Bible and calling in 
question its full inspiration, and thus seeking to be 
^^wise above what is written." It seems to me that 
time is too valuable, life is too short, and eternity is 
too long, for any minister of Christ to employ his 
powers and his pulpit for such purposes, rather than 
in preaching ''Christ, and Him crucified," and seek- 
ing to save the souls of men. 

But to drop the subject of the Bible, upon which 
our thoughts have been thus far occupied, let me 
bring before your readers, in the remainder of 
this letter, another important subject — the Church/ 



The Bible and the Church. 91 

and when I speak of the Church, I mean to be under- 
stood as embracing within it the whole body of 
Christ's faithful, believing followers, who take the 
Scriptures for their guide and rule of faith ; who are 
joined by faith to Christ, the living head ; who live 
according to His precepts, and partake of the graces 
of His heavenly spirit. 

Such constitute a vast fold, united in the unity of 
the spirit, and in the bond of peace; though they 
may assume different names, and bo separated in 
outward things in modes of organization and forms 
of worship, yet they all agree in what is most intrin- 
sically important : the depravity of man, the need 
and efScacy of a divine atonement, the necessity of 
repentance and faith, the need of a divine spirit, and 
the eternal happiness of the righteous. 

What a noble band ! and what noble works are 
being wrought out by all these various bodies of 
Christians ! They have founded our political and 
religious institutions — our schools, and colleges, and 
ohurches. Thuy are the safeguard and glory of the 
land. By their teaching and their example, they 
have purified public sentiment, and created a moral 
tone in society, without which it would become a 
sink of moral pollution and a den of thieves. They 
have visited hospitals and prisons, and carried the 



92 The Bible and the Church. 

consoling, comforting and regenerating influence of 
the religion of Christ into the dark homes of vice and 
want. They have upheld the Sabbath and the sanc- 
tuary, and kept the light of the Gospel burning on 
the watch-towers of Zion to guide the weary and 
benighted into safety and peace. They have carried 
the Gospel's light to pagan shores, and kindled up 
fires under the sky of the Equator, and amid the 
snows of Greenland. ^m 

I pity the man who feels no sympathy and no thrill 
of spiritual pleasure, as he thinks of what the vast 
hosts of Protestant Christendom are doing for our 
world. I have little sympathy with that narrow spirit 
of sectarianism which never looks beyond the narrow 
boundaries of its own little fold, nor extends the 
hand of sympathy, or look of kindness, toward the 
great Christian brotherhood. I can truly say, God 
bless them, and prosper them in their noble work. 
It has fallen to the lot of the writer to be trained up 
and ordained a minister in the Protestant Episcopal 
Church — an honored and historic Church — at whose 
altars have ministered such men as Dr. Francis L. 
Hawks, Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, Dr. Milnor, Dr. Cut- 
ler; and which has embraced within its communion 
such honored and worthy laymen as Governor John 
Jay, George Washington, Henry Clay, Madison, 



The Bible and the Church. 93 

Monroe, Arthur, and others. Let me conclude these 
thoughts on the Church by barely suggesting some 
two or three characteristics which to the mind of 
the writer present the Episcopal Church in a favor- 
able aspect. 

1. The Episcopal Church is a Scriptural Church. 
It is founded on the infallible teaching of the Bible. 
It says: ''Holy Scripture containeth all things 
necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read 
therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be 
required of any man that it should be believed 
as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or 
necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy 
Scripture, we do understand those canonical books 
of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority 
was never any doubt in the Church.'' 

2. The Episcopal Church is also an Evangelical 
Church ; for it holds that we are saved, not by good 
works, or penances, but through the merits of Christ. 
Listen to one of its articles: ''They also are to be 
held accursed that presume to say that every man 
shall be saved by the law or sect which he profes- 
seth, so that he be diligent to frame his life accord- 
ing to that law and the light of nature, for Holy 
Scripture doth set out unto us, only the name of 
Jesus Christ, whereby man must be saved." 



94: The Bible and the Church, 

3. The Episcopal Church is possessed of a rich and 
Scriptural Liturgy — the growth of ages. It contains- 
the most subhme devotions and saintly prayers 
which have been uttered by saints and martyrs in all 
ages, and which have called forth the highest enco- 
miums of Christians of every name. This feature 
of the Episcopal Church is one which is commending 
itself more and more in the eyes of the Christian 
pubHc and has led many, outside of its pale, to adopt 
some form of hturgy in public worship. 

4. The Episcopal Church is also a more liberal 
Church than many others. It tolerates within ita 
fold many schools of thought, and various shades of 
opinion, and has grown, at least within the writer's 
recollection, far more tolerant than it formerly was 
of the opinions and faith of others. 

5. The Episcopal Church is also a progressing 
Church. Look at the statistics, as presented by the 
late General Convention, of its progress within the 
last ten years. It is making rapid strides. Its mis- 
sions, at home and abroad, have been multipHed; its 
dioceses, enlarged ; its clergy and members, vastly 
increased. Its institutions have grown with great 
rapidity. It is well adapted to all classes and condi- 
tions, and by God's blessing, will continue to make 
progress. 



XII. 



Since I last had the pleasure of addressing you, it 
has been my privilege to make an enjoyable visit of 
several weeks to the great and growing City of New 
York, which now ranks first and foremost of all 
American cities in art, in science, in material and 
religious progress; in the grandeur and elegance of 
her public and private edifices; in the beauty and 
splendor of her churches, and in her many noble 
monuments of Christian charity. New York, it 
must be admitted, now stands on a proud pre-emi- 
nence. To one looking back over a period of fifty 
years, the changes wrought by the hand of time seem 
marvelous indeed. I can remember when New York 
was but an inconsiderable place, and Brooklyn a 
small village. The chief means of travel then was 
by an old-fashioned stage-coach, from Westchester 
County down through what was then and is now 
called ''The Bowery," which carried the mail and 
passengers. No cars and steamboats. Now, what a 
95 



^6 New York: its Growth, etc. 

contrast, in the crowds of palatial steamboats and 
of steam-cars which daily bring their crowds of 
visitors to the city. I am now safely and comfortably 
lodged near Madison Avenue, a few blocks above 
'' The Grand Central Depot/' where there formerly 
stood open, barren fields comparatively worthless. 
A few moments' walk leads me out to Madison and 
Pifth Avenues, both of which are lined with costly 
and imposing private dwellings and churches, which 
cannot be surpassed for elegance and grandeur in 
their style of architecture. A few Sundays ago we 
w^alked a short distance down Madison Avenue, and 
attended divine service in St. Bartholomew's Church, 
the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooke, pastor. This church is 
quite a beautiful edifice. The ceilings and walls are 
finely frescoed. A row of exquisitely wrought 
colored marble pillars runs through the church on 
either side of the middle aisle. The side and altar 
windows, covered with Scripture scenes, adorn the 
edifice. I was particularly drawn to this church, as 
I had never seen the interior, and was anxious to hear 
the rector preach, who was an old and long-tried 
friend of mine. We were fellow-students in the 
Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in 
this city as long ago as 1837 and 1838. Dr. Cooke is 
a man of rare pulpit talents, and his career has been 



New York : its Growth^ etc. 97 

a most successful and useful one. Starting out from 
the seminary, he began his ministerial labors in a 
missionary parish in the town of Lyons, "Western 
New York, where he was instrumental in gathering 
a congregation and building a neat and tasteful 
.church; from thence he was called to the church at 
Geneva. From Geneva he received a call to the 
Parish of St. Paul's Church, New Haven, Conn. 
This was a field peculiarly adapted to a minister 
possessing his fine imaginative and descriptive 
talents, and attractive oratory. He soon became 
very popular. His church was largely frequented by 
students, and rich spiritual blessings attended his 
labors. From New Haven, he received a call to St. 
Bartholomew's Church, and devoted his time and 
faithful labors to the spiritual welfare of this church, 
which stood for many years on the corner of Lafay- 
ette Place and Great Jones Street but was subse- 
quently abandoned for the present church, standing 
on the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-Third 
Street. Few men have maintained for so many 
years such a faithful and useful record as Dr. 
Cooke. 

It has been our privilege, likewise, on one or two 
occasions, to attend the services on Sunday at St. 



98 New York: its Growth, etc. 

Thomas's Church, corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty- 
third Street. This splendid and imposing church 
stands on the most commanding and elevated part of 
Fifth Avenue. Its interior adornments, its fine 
paintings within the chancel, its magnificent organ- 
music, its exquisite steeple-chimes, all contribute to 
make St. Thomas's Church a most attractive spot to 
the Sunday church-goer and worshiper, and the 
church is always well filled. 

The rector. Dr. Morgan, is a man of excellent char- 
acter, justly esteemed for his long and faithful 
services. His white and flowing locks give him 
a most venerable appearance. His age does not 
seem, as yet, to detract much from his popu- 
larity, and this is made up by the very accept- 
able services and popular talents of his assistant, 
the Rev. J. Macay Smith. He is fortunate, cer- 
tainly, in having so desirable and acceptable a 
coadjutor and fellow-laborer in the church. What 
a most interesting past does the history of this 
church present ! When St. Thomas's Church stood 
on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street, 
it was attended for years by crowds of eager 
and interested listeners during the ministry of 
Dr. Hawks. None who ever listened to his wonder- 



New- York: its Growth, etc. 99 

ful oratory could easily forget him. The pews, aisles 
and galleries of the church were always full, leaving 
no standing-room. 

Among the great distinguished pulpit orators of 
the past, who can cease to remember the names of Dr. 
Higbie ; Dr. Haight, of Trinity Church — now passed 
away ; the elder Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, too, still 
living to a good old age at his home on the Hudson ? 
Few men have left such a striking and indelible im- 
pression on the community as Dr. Tyng. It is said 
that when a young man, while preaching in a small^ 
inconsiderable parish in Virginia, he received a call 
to a large church in Philadelphia. A number of the 
parishioners hearing of it, fearing lest he might not 
be able to satisfy the expectations of so important 
and large a parish, sent him a paper, signed by sixty 
heads of families, advising him not to accept the call. 
Dr. Tyng, on receiving the document, immediately 
resolved that he would accept it, saying that if sixty 
persons opposed, that would determine him to go and 
see if he could not make them think differently. He 
went, and soon satisfied their highest expectations. 
From this large and growing parish Dr. Tyng came 
to the City of New York, assuming the rectorship of 
St. Georore's Church, which had been made vacant 



100 New York: its Growth, etc, 

by the much lamented death of Dr. Milnor. The 
success which attended his labors was most remark- 
able, and soon resulted in the abandonment of old St. 
George's Church in Beekman Street, and the erec- 
tion of a more spacious edifice on the corner of 
Sixteenth Street, facing Stuyvesant Square. Multi- 
tudes now living can recall the remarkable public 
addresses and powerful platform speeches which he 
formerly made in behalf of various religious and char- 
itable institutions, such as the American Bible Society, 
the American Tract Society and in behalf of temper- 
ance and moral reform. On all such occasions his 
efforts were master-pieces of argument and reason- 
ing, such as made a most teUing impression upon 
his auditors. 

Among the other objects, the visitor to the city 
will not fail to notice the imposing St. Patrick's 
Cathedral, standing on the crown of the hill on Fifth 
Avenue. Its vast roof, and towers, and buttresses 
of white marble, arrest the eye of the passer-by, and 
crowds may be seen entering its open doors daily. 
Following up Madison Avenue, beyond the site of 
the Cathedral, you pass by quite a number of fine 
churches ; such, for example, as the church of the 
Hev. Dr. Sabine — Reformed Episcopal — a very chaste 



New York: its Growth, etc, 101 

and beautiful house of worship ; the Rev, Dr. Robin- 
son's — Presbyterian ; the Rev. Dr. Reed's — Dutch 
Reformed Church. 

The Church of the Holy Spirit, the Rev. Dr. 
Gilbert^ pastor, is an Episcopal church, and one of 
the most beautiful structures on the avenue. It is 
richly ornamented, has a fine organ, v^ith good 
music, and its pastor is a useful and acceptable 
preacher. The new Methodist church, corner of 
Sixtieth Street, is a very ornate, stylish church- 
sufficiently so to suit the most fastidious class of 
worshipers. There is one more church, called the 
Church of the Beloved Disciple, near Eighty-sixth 
Str(jet, the Rev. Mr. Warner, rector. It was built 
and endowed by a lady, Miss Caroline Talman. 
Monuments to the deceased members of the Talman 
family stand in the wall on the side of the church. 
The music, by choir-boys, is well conducted and im- 
pressive, and the rector preaches an excellent, 
practical sermon, without notes. 

One day we crossed and entered Central Park by 
the entrance not far from Eighty-second Street, 
which brings you to the Museum and Art Gallery, 
and in front of the famous Obelisk brought from the 
River Nile, in Egypt. Upon it you may read the 
old inscriptions and see the sacred birds, and as you 



102 New York: its Growth, etc. 



look at the tall, massive stone column, you wonder 
how it could have been brought such a distance — all 
the way from the Xile. The Art Gallery and Museum 
are well worth visiting. Many rare old pictures adorn 
the Gallery. The lover of art and antiquity might 
spend days in examining them and the rare curiosi- 
ties of the Museum. Leaving these, we strolled down 
through the avenues of the Park, stopping to exam- 
ine the many statues which have been erected here 
and there to the memory of great historical person- 
ages, such as Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Hum- 
boldt, Robert Burns, Moore, FitzGreene Halleck and 
others. The lake, the shaded avenues and wooded 
lawns of the Park afford dehghtf ul breathing-places 
to the citizens of Xew York during the Spring and 
Summer months. 

To-day being Easter Sunday, we went forth beneath 
a bright and joyous sunshine to commemorate the 
grand and glorious festival of the Resurrection. The 
services, which were deeply interesting, were held 
in the Church of the Heavenly Rest, the Rev. Dr. 
Howland being rector. This is certainly a most 
attractive church. The large, full-sized picture of 
the Saviour occupying the whole space in the chancel 
below the elegant stained window, is very impress- 
ive, and seems to invite the worshiper to that 



New York: its Growth, etc. 103 

heavenly rest which He came to bestow on all who 
will follow Him and walk in His blessed footsteps. 
The rector who founded this beautiful church, which 
stands on Fifth Avenue, near Forty-fifth Street, is 
now in impaired health. But he is ably assisted by 
the Rev. D. P. Morgan, a most earnest and eloquent 
preacher. Many are being drawn to the church and 
benefited by his impressive style of preaching. A 
band of choir-boys give excellent music, and the 
prospects of this church for the future look very 
encouraging. 



XIII. 

I HATE, in former letters, spoken of such topics as 

^^The Bible" and •'•'The Church." In the foUowing 
letter I will speak of home. And oh I what a magic 
and powerful influence does that simple word, home^ 
exert upon the himian heart I The first home was in 
Eden, and was formed by the Creator Himself, and 
consisted of Adam and Eve. who walked forth in 
loving communion, fresh from the Creator's hand; 
and so this divine appointment of the domestic insti- 
tution of home in Paradise has outlived the convulsions 
of kingdoms and the destruction of empires. The 
early training and instruction of the mother at home 
by the cradle and fireside help, more than anything 
else, to frame those habits of character and conduct 
which form the future man, and remain with him as 
governing principles of conduct in after life, long 
after that Christian mother may have moldered into 
dust. The greatest of earthly sovereigns, Xapoleon, 
when speaking of the power of mothers in the home- 
circle to shape a nation's destiny, once said, ''The 
great need of France is mothers.'^ And Mohammed 
104 



The Family. 105 

expressed forcibly the same truth when he said, 
^'Paradise is at the feet of mothers." 

There is no overestimating the importance of our 
early childhood home — the centre of the purest and 
most tender affection— where every good and holy 
principle has been cultivated by a mother's hand, and 
whence so many of the great and good in all ages^ 
have come to bless the world. Oh ! how does the 
memory of our early home, its dear inmates, its fire- 
side surroundings, and, above all, the picture of one 
who with a patient devotion and meek endurance, 
ever watched and guarded our steps, and dismissed 
us at twilight's evening hour with a prayer and a 
blessing — oh ! how, I say, does the memory of such 
scenes shine in the past like a bright star and encour- 
age us along life's weary, toilsome pathway. 

Ah ! there is wonderful truth and force in those 
beautiful lines of Fanny I. Crosby : 

*' 'Tis whispered in the ear of God ; 

'Tis murmured through our tears ; 
***Tis linked with happy childhood days 

And blessed in riper years. 

** That hallowed word is ne'er forgot, 
No matter where we roam — 
The purest feelings of the heart 
Still cluster round our home. 



106 The Family. 

**Dear resting-place, where weary Thought 
May dream a^yay its eare, 
Love's gentle star unvails her Hght, 
And shines in beauty there." 

Let me proceed now to state what ought to be the 
characteristics of every true home j and — 

1. It ought to he a Christian home. 

There can be no well-regulated home without piety, 
w^ithout religion, without the love and fear of 
Almighty God. The divine origin of the home and 
the family, the divine sanction thrown around it, and 
the divine laws written down in God's Book for the 
regulation and perpetuity of the marriage relation, 
all go to show that the only true conception of an 
earthly home as it should be is a Christian home. 
And yet, how many are there who, it is to be feared, 
enter into this most serious and solemn of all condi- 
tions, involving human happiness and human destiny, 
from the most frivolous considerations ; to gratify 
some foolish whim or fancy, some impulse of passion, 
or, from mercenary motives, they barter away their 
hearts' best affections for gold, and soon they wake 
up from their frivolous dream and delusion only to 
TeaHze the sternness of the compact upon which they 
have entered, and to find, when too late, that they 
have made the one grand mistake of their lives, and 



The Family. 107 

entailed upon themselves a consequent wretchedness, 
from which there is no remedy, no refuge but the 
grave ! 

Better remain as you are, alone, than to run such a 
fearful risk as that of assuming the marriage vow 
hastily and foolishly, from sentimental fancy or blind 
passion. Most deplorable will be the consequences if 
you exclude religious considerations from that most 
sacred compact. Both reason and Scripture unite to 
protest against the union of a believer with an 
unbeliever, and exhort us to *^ ^ marry only in the Lord. " 

There must be kindness, gentleness, meekness, 
forbearance, ministries of love and Christian affection 
toward one another — not only on the part of parents 
toward each other, but also toward children. By the 
influence of early teaching and example, the charac- 
ter is formed and the child acquires those traits and 
qualities which shape and form its character. Chris- 
tianity must begin at home. If it is not there, it is 
nowhere. The most important question is not. Does 
the minister wear a gown or a surplice ? Do you 
attend religious meetings and get up church- 
fairs ? but. What are you at home 9 Is home a 
better and happier place for your living in it ? Ah ! 
there is many a gorgeous mansion, many a home of 
palatial grandeur, adorned with artistic beauty ; but 



108 The Family. 

its halls are the abodes of fretfulness — discord, and 
mutual distrust breathe over its sumptuous apartments 
like a robed skeleton. There is no Christianity there 
— no heartfelt principle of piety, no faith in God in 
that household. If you would, therefore, make home 
the happiest place — the source of the sweetest con- 
solation; if you would have your children prove a 
blessing, and not a curse, see to it that you first, and 
above all, make your home a Christian home. 

2. In the next place, notice another characteristic 
of a true home. It should he a cheerful home. 

Henry Ward Beecher says: ''A man's house or 
home should be on the hilltop of cheerfulness and 
serenity ^^so high that no shadows rest upon it. The 
morning comes so early, the evening tarries so late, 
that the day has twice as many golden hours as those 
of other men. He is to be pitied whose house or home 
is in some valley of grief, between the hills, with the 
longest night and the shortest day. Home should be 
the centre of joy, equatorial and tropical." 

There is much truth stated here. A Christian 
home ought, above all, to be a place of cheerfulness. 
It is a libel on religion to suppose that it consists in an 
austere manner, and a sad countenance, and going 
through life with downcast looks, whining and fret- 
ting, and forever singing penitential psahns. The 



The Family. 109 

Saviour Himself, though a man of sorrows, yet joined 
in the innocent festivities of a wedding, and converted 
the water into wine. It would be derogatory to the 
character of our Father and Creator to suppose that 
He intended that his children in this world should 
not participate in life's innocent pleasures and enjoy- 
ments. On the contrary, it is a command and a duty 
enjoined upon Christians, ^^ Rejoice always; and 
again I say rejoice." And again, it is said, ^^A 
cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine.'' " Young 
men," said Dr. Grifl&n to a class of theological 
students, '^I wish to teach you the Christian duty of 
laughing." 

If you would make your home what it ought to be, 
cultivate this habit of cheerfulness ; throw bright 
gleams of sunshine by your smiles and kind words 
amid the family group, as they gather round the 
evening fireside. Smiles cost but little, but remem- 
ber they bring encouragement, and, like the gentle 
Summer rain upon the flowers, so do they scatter 
fragrance and beauty over life's pathway. Such a 
home, no matter how humble it may be, when thus 
made cheerful and glad with kind words, will be the 
one spot toward which the hearts of its inmates will 
turn lovingly, in after years, as the dearest spot 
beneath the sun. 



110 The Family. 

3. Another thing which ought to be a characteristic 
of a true home : It should he a healthy home. This is 
likewise a matter of great importance, and too often 
neglected. How can you expect your home to be 
cheerful and pleasant when its inmates are sickly and 
puny and weak ? Mens sana in corpore sano — a 
sound mind in a sound body. If you would have 
healthful emotions of the mind — if you would have 
pure, transparent thoughts, take care of the body, 
and obey strictly the laws that pertain to your physi- 
cal well-being. The great and good Book says : '^I 
beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies — a living sacrifice — 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service." It is a religious duty, then, to observe the 
laws of health, and take care of the body. And in 
order to do this, people must have knowledge ; they 
must be instructed as to that monument of wonderful 
divine skill, the human body — the nature and adapta- 
tion of all its parts, and the means of their preserva-^ 
tion ; they should be taught the need of exercise, 
pure air and pure water, pure sunshine, proper and 
thorough drainage of their homes, the proper observ- 
ance of the laws of diet and bodily cleanliness — all 
these things are necessary to a true home. What 
matters it, though you live in a home of grandeur, or 



The Family. Ill 

in a gorgeous palace of Oriental splendor, and have 
every luxury and ornament which wealth can give, 
if there be not roseate health within ? You may have 
homes graced with pictures, refined by books, beauti- 
fied by flowers, but what will all these avail, if there 
be not there the joyousness and sweet treasure of 
health ? You may ride in your magnificent coach to 
church, with your liveried servants, and walk up the 
aisle in gorgeous, rustling silks, but what will it all 
avail if there be no roseate tint of health on the 
human face divine ? 



XIV. 

In the following letter it will be my aim to present 
some brief recollections of two very distinguished 
Episcopal clergymen. The first is that of Francis 
L. Hawks, D.D., LL.D. When I first knew him he 
was preaching in Trinity and St. Paul's churches, in 
New Haven, as assistant to the Rev. Dr. Croswell. 
But it was not long before he accepted a call to 
Philadelphia as assistant to Bishop White in St. 
James' church. In 1831 he became rector of St. 
Stephen's church, New York, and in the following 
year of St. Thomas' church, on the corner of Broad- 
way and Houston street. This was the scene of Dr. 
Hawks' most eloquent efforts as a preacher. He 
was also a powerful speaker in the conventions and 
councils of the church. 

His gifts as an orator surpassed, I think, those of 
any speaker I ever heard. Great numbers flocked to 
his church from all parts of the city and beyond it, 
and all were moved and entranced by his effective 
preaching. His deep, broad and impressive tones 
in reading the service of the Episcopal Church 
112 




THE REV. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D.D., LL.D., 

OF New Yobk. 



Bev, Dr, Hawks. 113 

arrested the attention. His imagination would carry 
them captive, and his pathos would move them to 
tears. No greater pulpit orator ever graced the Epis- 
copal Church. Besides, he was deeply learned and 
skilled in the knowledge of canon law and church 
history. 

After Dr. Hawks left St. Thomas' church he 
became rector of Calvary church, corner of Twenty- 
first street and Fourth avenue, where he remained 
for five years. During the civil war Dr. Hawks 
preached in Baltimore. He then returned to New 
York, where he ministered in a church built for him 
by friends and admirers. Increasing years and bod- 
ily infirmities impaired his energies, and soon after, 
in 1865, he departed this life, leaving behind him a 
well-earned fame. He was a thoroughly evangelical 
preacher, and a warm advocate of the polity of the 
Episcopal Church. He preached the pure gospel, 
viewing man as a lost sinner, with no hope or refuge 
but in Christ. His last utterance was: ''I cling to 
the cross of Jesus as my only hope." More than 
once he declined an important bishopric, and his 
literary remains include several volumes. 

The second is that of Bishop Hobart. Bishop 
John Henry Hobart was a most energetic, talented, 
and popular divine, who did more, perhaps, than any 



114 Bishop Hohart. 

other prelate to advance the interests and prosperity 
of the Episcopal Church in this country. He was of 
English descent, born in Philadelphia Sept. 14, 1775. 
His early education and training devolved very 
much upon his mother, who seems to have been a 
woman of fine abilities and many accomplishments. 
He entered the grammar school in Philadelphia and 
subsequently graduated at Princeton College, where 
he was appointed tutor in the year 1796. 

He studied theology under the direction of Bishop 
White, by whom he was ordained deacon in June^ 
1798. He spent some time in the discharge of his 
duties as rector of St. George's parish, Hempstead, 
L. I. By this time he had become a man of mark^ 
and exhibited such extraordinary pulpit powers that 
the attention of more important congregations was 
drawn to him. He received a call to St. Mark's 
church in the City of New York, which was soon 
followed by a still more important call to become 
assistant minister of Trinity church. He filled this 
position with great and increasing popularity from 
about the year 1801 to 1811, when, in consequence of 
the failing health and infirmities of Bishop Moore, 
he was elected, almost unanimously. Bishop of the 
diocese of New York. Thus was it that Bishop 
Hobart rose from one position to another until he 



\ 




THE RIGHT REV. JOHN HENRY HOBART, D.D., LL. D. 

Third Bishop of New York. 



Bishop Hobart, 115 

reached the highest pinnacle of power and influence 
in the American Episcopal Church. How well, and 
successfully, he discharged the important trust his- 
tory testifies. He not only administered his func- 
tions as bishop with great care and unfaltering zeal 
and promptitude, but he also carried his labors into 
other vacant dioceses, particularly New Jersey and 
Connecticut. He helped to establish in New York 
City the General Theological Seminary and published 
many books and controversial writings in defence 
of Church doctrine and polity. 

The accumulating labors of Bishop Hobart began 
at length to make serious inroads upon his constitu- 
tion, and it was thought advisable for him to visit 
Europe, which he did in 1822, travelling through 
England, Scotland, Wales, France, Switzerland and 
Italy. In all these countries he was received with 
marks of favor, and returned home in 1824 with 
renewed health. He still continued to labor on, in 
his accustomed round of duties, in frequent visita- 
tions of his parishes. I can recall some of his visita- 
tions to my father's parish at Bedford, IST. Y. I 
remember his intellectual face and keen eye, which 
betokened great earnestnes and intensity of thought, 
and how powerfully and impressively he conveyed 
his thoughts to the minds of his hearers. While he 



116 Bishop Hohart. 

was making one of these visitations in the parish of 
his friend Dr. Rudd, at Auburn, N. Y., in the year 
1830, he was prostrated with a sudden illness, which 
proved to be his last. His death made a most pro- 
found impression throughout the country. Many 
funeral orations and commemorative discourses were 
preached, and no less than thirteen of them were 
published in his memoir. 



XV. 



We have just returned from the city, after a stay 
of something over two months, and are noYv^ back 
again in our lovely country home. While in the 
city our time was spent partly in attending to busi- 
ness and partly in the enjoyment of the kindly hos- 
pitality and intercourse of friends and relatives. 
We stopped a part of the time not far from the resi- 
dence of General Grant, in Sixty-sixth Street, Of 
course our very contiguity to this distinguished man 
— so justly esteemed for his great services to his 
country, and so universally sympathized with dur- 
ing his long and painful illness — served to increase 
the interest we felt in him; and we eagerly perused 
the morning and evening papers to learn the latest 
news concerning the health of the old hero of our 
Civil War. As I said before, we are back again 
within our Summer home. It is a bright and beau- 
ful morning in the leafy month of June. The sun 
has arisen, and is marching along the blue heavens, 
pouring his cheering beams upon the landscape. A 
soft, gentle breeze rustles amid the trees. All 
117 



118 Summer Life at Waldegrave Cottage, 

nature is dressed in its loveliest attire; the air is 
redolent with the perfume of flowers ; the sweet 
notes of the robins and blue-birds fall soothingly on 
the ear. Our cottage is pleasantly located on a 
gentle slope of ground, and stands on a fine avenue, 
which is lined on either side with tall, graceful elms. 
With its green, shaded lawn in front, its veranda 
covered with honeysuckles, and its roses and many- 
hued flowers and shrubs, it is a pleasant country 
home. There are many beautiful drives all about us. 
This morning, let us go, if you will, to ''Keyser 
Island " — so named from its proprietor. It is a fav- 
orite drive with people here, and lies down by the 
waters of Long Island Sound. After a few miles' 
ride through the town and its outskirts, we cross a 
salt marsh and then come upon the island, on which, 
there is a handsome residence, with cultivated 
grounds, fruit-trees, a variety of shrubbery, and 
some fine pieces of statuary ornamenting the walks. 
The road winds around the island on the edge of 
the water. As we drive along, we see the mossy 
rocks and hear the plashing waves as they dash 
against the pebbly beach. In sight are several 
wooded islands, with their habitations, for which this 
coast is remarkable. Out upon the water may be 
seen many sail-boats and little oyster-craft. Out 



Class Meeting at Yale. 119 

upon these very waters where our eyes now rest, in 
the month of July, 1779, a British ship came to 
anchor, and its forces, disembarking, proceeded 
under Try on, up to the town, which was then a small 
hamlet of a few houses, and burned them to the 
ground. What a contrast between that scene and 
i^he one presented at this day of a thriving city of 
iifteen thousand inhabitants ! 

There are scenes and events in our lives which 
leave unusually interesting memories behind them. 
One of these is the recollection of college life at Yale. 
Who could ever forget the morning when he started, 
followed by a mother's tender smile, and a father's 
Hessing, for the distant college, to enter for the first 
time its academic halls, to pass his examination in 
presence of the august members of the faculty, and 
then to step forth with the proud feeling that his 
name has been enrolled as one of the Freshman 
class. I can well recollect how elated I was as I left 
the building and walked down under the elms, 
through the college grounds, looking with interest 
into the faces of my class-mates whom I had met. 
Who can forget the old familiar haunts, the recita- 
tion rooms, the oft-frequented library, the cabinet, 
the Trumbull gallery with its fine paintings, includ- 
ing the portraits of the faculty and the striking f am- 



120 Class Meeting at Yale. 

ily picture of Bishop Berkeley ? Could one forget the 
splendid lectures of Professors Benjamin Silliman, 
Olmstead^ Goodrich, or the meetings and exercises 
of the various literary societies ? Could any one 
forget Commencement Day, when, standing on the 
stage, amid men of learning and renown, and in 
presence of anxious relatives and friends, he deliv- 
ered his alloted speech, and then took his final 
departure, bidding farewell to college hfe and college 
companions ? "With all these scenes fresh in our 
minds, we come back to-day to meet the small rem- 
nant of our class left, after fifty years spent in the 
pleasures and toils of professional life. To-day we 
took the cars at an early hour for Xew Haven, arriv- 
ing about half -past ten a.m., thus giving us time to 
rest a while, dine at our hotel, and take a short 
ramble through the beautiful city, and view once 
more the ever favorite halls of Yale. There stand 
the same time-worn structures we remember, but 
with them are many new ones, fine noble edifices, 
such as the Sheffield Scientific School and the Art 
Gallery, the Marquand Chapel, the new dormitories, 
and various buildings for scientific and literary pur- 
poses. 

The hour having arrived for our meeting, we 
proceeded to the hospitable home of Professor 



Class Meeting at Yale. 121 

Thatcher, the class-secretary. It was the identical 
house so long occupied and blessed by the presence of 
that good man, President Day. Judge of our sur- 
prise, on entering the professor's study, to find there 
gathered no less than twenty men out of thirty-five 
survivors of a class of seventy-five who graduated 
at Yale in the year 1835. What a mile-stone this is 
in life's journey ! What a hill-top to reach and stand 
on for a moment, while we look back over the rough 
roads and sharp, sunny peaks we have left behind us! 
We can scarcely expect to have another gathering 
like this; certainly we cannot see all these faces again. 
But though old in appearance they are young in 
heart and cherish a fond affection for each other and 
their Alma Mater. There were present Professor 



Thatcher, so long and so deservedly held in high 
esteem for his services as Professor of the Latin Lan- 
guage and Literature in Yale College (now Emeri- 
tus); Professor Brocklesby, of Hartford, Conn., who 
has filled, with great credit to himself and Yale, the 
chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 
Trinity College for forty years ; the Rev. Mr. Sher- 
man, a missionary for many years in Palestine ; the 
Rev. Dr. Cheeseborough, of Saybrook, Conn.; the 
Rev. A. M. Colton, of East Hampton, Mass. (the two 
latter having resigned their parishes at the age of 



122 Class Meeting at Yale. 

seventy) ; the Rev. Mr. Butler, of Dorchester, Mass. 
Besides these there were present the Rev. Dr. How- 
ard, of Buffalo, N. Y., an Episcopal clergyman, and 
the Rev. George W. Nichols, also a clergyman of the 
Church, formerly of Brooklyn, now of Norwalk, 
Conn.; also several distinguished physicians. Dr. 
Robinson, of Concord, Mass. ; Dr. Dimon, of Auburn, 
N. Y. ; Dr. Josiah Abbott, of Winchester, Mass. ; Dr. 
Daniel L. Adams, of Ridgefield, Conn.; S. H. Galpin, 
of Washington, D. C; Edmund White, of New York; 
Amos Pettingell, of Philadelphia, a successful teacher 
of the deaf and dumb; O. B. Loomis, of New York, 
a painter of note ; J. F. Seymour, of Onondaga, N. 
Y., a distinguished lawyer, who has held several 
public ofl&ces, and is a brother of Governor Seymour, 
of New York. So that it will be seen that the class 
of 1835 presents a record of useful work. We lis- 
tened with deep interest to the accounts which each 
member of the class gave of himself, heard letters 
read from absent ones, examined their photographs, 
^tc, until a late hour in the evening, and then, after 
a bountiful repast, we separated for our homes. It 
was an occasion never to be forgotten. 



XVI. 

The sentence originally pronounced upon our first 
parents, after they had fallen, " In the sweat of thy 
face shalt thou eat bread/' though a just and well 
deserved penalty for disobedience was, nevertheless, 
a sentence mingled with mercy. It would not be 
difficult to show that the Almighty was consulting 
for the highest good of His creatures when He thus 
made labor their inevitable lot. I say, inevitable, 
for, look where we will, with few exceptions, it is 
only by hard toil that men gain their daily bread, 
and when he has not literally to live by the sweat of 
Ms brow, he may have to do that, which is more 
difficult still — live by the sweat of his brain. Intel- 
lectual food like bodily, must be gathered by dint of 
industry and toil. So that it is the dispensation 
under which we all live that we should be, each one, 
a laborer. Go where you will, whether to the regions 
covered with polar snows, or those scorched by the 
rays of a tropical sun, and you will find the ground 
yields little that labor does not extort from its bosom. 
This might seem at first a stern decree, that all men 
123 



124 The Great Object of Life. 

should be under the necessity of toiling for a liveli- 
hood and often wringing only a scanty subsistence 
from the earth. Yet, a little close reflection will 
serve to convince us that this arrangement of Provi- 
dence is most wise and that it would be disastrous to 
the human race to do away with this necessity for 
toil. For, who does not know that labor brings with 
it enjoyment and health and contentment of mind ? 
Who so miserable as the perfectly idle man, who 
does nothing but sit and eat and sleep away his life ? 
Who so miserable as he, and as a general thing who 
so little deserving of regard ? But while it is a good 
thing to be industrious, and to labor in some honest 
calling and aim to supply our temporal wants, the 
question here arises, is this the great object of life ? 
Is it not a vastly more important thing for men to 
make provision for the higher and enduring life of 
the soul ? Our Saviour taught us this great lesson of 
making provision for the life to come when He de- 
clared " man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'^ 
Let me ther proceed to illustrate this last point by, 
first, appealing to the example of Deity, Consider the 
Supreme Being as the great Architect of this creation, 
calling into being innumerable worlds, peopling im- 
mensity with mighty globes, and covering them with 



The Great Object of Life. 125 

their countless races of living creatures. See Him 
guiding and controling these worlds, ordering their 
complex machinery and laws. From day to day He 
stretches His guardian wing over them all and over 
the countless beings that inhabit them. Look at this 
world in which we live, adorned with noble forests, 
lovely lakes and rivers, and majestic mountains. 
See the sun which '' cometh forth as a bridegroom 
out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a giant to run 
his course," dispensing heat and life, scattering his 
cheering and gladsome beams upon both the animate 
and the inanimate creation. Behold the silvery 
moon, shedding down upon this globe her mild 
radiance. Look at the countless stars as they shine 
nightly, in the firmament. Take the telescope and 
direct your steadfast and eager gaze into those vast 
and interminable spaces where the great God is 
carrying on His mighty operations. As you cast 
your feeble sight thither, you perceive that the most 
distant stars within our vision are only the porch way 
— the suburbs, that lead to the myriads upon myri- 
ads of worlds which cover the plains of immensity. 
Now what can you find, let me ask, as you take a 
survey of all this wondrous extent of the operations 
of Deity — I say what can you find to countenance 
for a moment the selfish idea that the great object of 



126 The Great Object of Life. 

life .here is to live for one's self, to seek to amass 
earthly wealth and gratify earthly appetites and 
passions ? What is the Deity doing in all these 
countless worlds ? Is He seeking to enrich Himslf ? 
Xo; He is always giving from His own inexhaustible 
fullness to benefit and bless the creatures of His 
hand. And shall man make it his chief business to 
hve to acquire earthly good and seek the bread that 
perisheth, when he has before him such an example 
of ceaseless beneficence as that of Deity ? 

But look at another example to show what is the 
great and true object of life — that of Jesus Christ. 
What does His example teach us ? Does that give any 
approval to the thought that the great object of life 
it to pursue mere temporary good ? Reflect upon 
Jesus in His nativity ; though He was the earth's 
Creator, yet stooping to lie down on a bed of straw 
and to have His first home on this earth with the 
beasts of the stall, while beings fron the heavenly 
world descend and hover over His rude birthplace, 
and its own new-made star shines above it. Think 
of Him in His life and ministry : keeping company 
with humble fishermen while giving often startling 
and wonderful proofs of His Grodhead, as when He 
stood at the mouth of Lazarus' tomb, and cried with 
a loud voice '• Lazarus, come forth '" and he who had 



The Great Object of Life. VZ7 

been dead four days and had seen corruption came 
forth ahve again, or when He paused in His journey 
and regarded the cry of the poor bhnd beggar near 
Jericho and made him to see the sweet vision of the 
Hght and of the countenances of friends. Look at 
Jesus in all His earthly toils and labors and miracles 
which were done without fee or reward, out of pure 
love of doing good, while no return was asked save 
only the look of that thankfulness and love which were 
inspired in the souls of those poor widows and suffer- 
ing children upon whom His blessed acts of mercy 
were bestowed ; look at Him at last assailed by His 
enemies and bloodthirsty persecutors, condemned 
to death, nailed to the cross and there expiring in 
agony, while, with an upward look of pitying love, 
He prays for His murderers, '' Father forgive them 
for they know not what they do !" Then think of His 
resurrection : His sacred form was laid in the rocky 
sepulchre and guarded well by Roman soldiers ; and 
yet He bursts these bonds and rises up a glorious 
conqueror over death and the grave, thus making it 
sure that the dead shall be revived again. And once 
more think of the touching incidents which after 
His resurrection followed His discourse with Mary, 
His sudden and unexpected interviews with His 
disciples, His mysterious walk with two of them as 



128 The Great Object of Life. 

they went to the village of Emmaus, His gentle 
reproof of Thomas, His final charge and commis- 
sion to the Apostles to go forth and preach the Gospel 
to every creature ; and then, follow Christ to that 
last, never to be forgotten scene of His ascension 
from Mount Olivet, when, on giving His disciples 
His parting blessing. His radiant form suddenly rose 
upward amid the clouds. Yes, look at Jesus as He 
appears in all the wonderful events of His life, and 
then say if life's great and highest good is to please 
and gratify one's self, to amass riches and provide 
the bread of this world only ; or, is it not rather to 
seek that enduring bread which cometh from heaven, 
to cultivate that nobler, that everlasting life of the 
soul for which it was created in the image and 
likeness of God ? 

Finally, we will make an appeal to the example of 
the holy angels. What is their occupation ? Is not 
their life spent in ceaseless benevolence and tender 
sympathy and helpful ministrations in behalf of 
others ? We are told, that, " there is joy in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth" and again, ^^ Are 
they not all" says an Apostle "ministering spirits 
sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of 
salvation." All those varied ranks of celestial intelh- 
gences, of archangels, cherubim and seraphim which 



The Great Object of Life. 129 

surround the throne above, and continually ascribe 
praise and honor and glory to Him Who sitteth 
thereon ; while those whose duty is here are ever busy 
in their kind offices to God's believing people, succor- 
ing and sustaining them in their earthly conflicts and 
trials. With intense longing they welcome each 
returning penitent in the Church below, and the 
joyful news of the blessed transformation fills heaven 
with new transports of rejoicing. What does such 
a spectacle teach but this, that the highest object and 
purpose that man can live for is to be '^ not weary in 
well doing " and to consecrate himself to that charity 
v^hich is life eternal. 

" Life is real, life is earnest 

And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest , 

Was not spoken of the soul," 

And the soul's life is in God ; and, God is love. 



XVII. 



'' What think ye of Christ ?" This is a question of 
transcendent interest and importance. There is not 
in the range of Christian Theology a question of 
higher practical concern. What think ye of Christ ? 
Some questions have to do with our intellectual 
nature only ; for example, suppose you were to cross, 
the ocean and enter the city of London, a city of 
30 miles Circuit, filled with magnificent parks and 
stately buildings and streets of trade and industry — 
suppose you were to enter Westminster Abbey ; and^ 
as you stood filled with awe and amazement, looking 
at the marble monimaents of poets, philosophers, states- 
men, divines, composing the congregation of England's 
illustrious dead, some one one were to ask you what 
you thought of that majestic edifice ? Your reply 
would be, '' Here is surely the triumph of true genius 
and art." But that would be a question pertaining: 
merely to your intellectual nature. Or, again, sup- 

130 



The Vital Question. 131 

pose some one should ask you what you thought of 
the immortal works of Bunyan, John Milton, Shake- 
speare;, Walter Scott ; your answer would be ''These 
also are the true and substantial monuments of 
intellectual greatness." But the question with, 
which this letter begins is of a higher order. In 
discussing it let us try to see, first, what it does not 
imply, and then what it does imply. 

1st. I would observe this question is not^ what do 
you think of Christ simply as a philanthropist^ 
wonderful as he was in going from village to village 
and from house to house doing good and ministering 
to the wants of the diseased, and the afflicted. It is^ 
not what do you think of Jesus as He sat bathed in 
tears beside the tomb of His dead friend Lazarus 
near that home so beautiful in affection — the home at 
Bethany. It is not what do you think of Him as He 
once passed near the gates of the city of Nain, and 
there met Him a funeral procession, a poor widow fol- 
lowing the remains of her only and beloved boy to the 
place of burial, when Jesus with an eye of compassion 
turning to that desolate woman and placing His hand 
on the bier uttered in the hearing of all the assembly 
that marvellous summons : "'Young man, I say unta 
thee, arise," and the dead did arise, with the warm 
pulses of life again beating through his frame, and a 



132 The Vital Question. 

joy indescribable lighted up that mother's face as she 
grasped once more the hand of her dear one restored 
to life. 

It is not, what do you think of Christ, as He appears 
to you on the Mount of Transfiguration, when His 
countenance shone as the midday sun and His 
raiment was white as the light, and Peter exclaimed : 
" Lord, it is good for us to be here." It is not, what 
do you think of him as he walked once on the sea as 
if it had been a granite pavement, or, yet again, 
when He stood in the little ship with His alarmed 
disciples amid the storm-tossed billows of the Lake of 
Gennesareth, and said to those raging waters " Peace, 
be still," and the sea immediately became calm, the 
winds were hushed to rest. No, this is not what is 
specially implied in that searching inquiry : '' What 
think ye of Christ," though it is indeed a delightful 
task to trace our Redeemer through all these varied 
and wonderful scenes of His earthly life, and to 
behold, as we do in them all. His amazing tender- 
ness and compassion. The all-important enquiry 
w^hich we are now considering means much more 
than this. It is a question passing down from the 
head to the heart and affecting our spiritual nature. 
It means ''What think ye of Christ as your Be- 
deemer?^' What think ye of Christ Who endured 



The Vital Question, 133 

the cross for you, Christ Who was scourged and nailed 
to the shameful tree for you, Christ Who was mocked^ 
buffeted, spit upon and put to death for you ; and 
hence 

2d. We observe that this question implies the 
acknowledgement of Christ's Deity. Have you ever 
duly considered what Jesus Christ was ? Have you 
ever thought, this Jesus Who bled and suffered and 
died on the cross, who stooped to this unparalleled 
humiliation was none other than the Son of God, was^ 
He who hung yon lamps in heaven's dome, Who 
spake into being this globe on which we tread, and 
garnished it with trees and flowers, and filled it with 
living creatures ? No man who has carefully and hon- 
estly examined Holy Scripture can reach any other 
conclusion than this, viz. , that Jesus Christ was God^ 
' 'God over all, blessed forever ;" not simply the greatest 
of prophets or the greatest of teachers or the most 
perfect of mankind, but a divine mediator. Read 
over the Sacred Record ; see how He claims His own 
equality with the Father, nay His unity with the 
Father, ''I, and My Father are one," ''he that hath 
seen Me hath seen the Father." 

I have no sympathy with some of those of the 
present day, who would throw discredit on the 
doctrine of Christ's Godhead, and who assert that He 



134 The Vital Question. 

^vas only a great teacher or prophet or religious 
rgenius, and taught pure and lofty morality. 

They say that it was unworthy of God to give up 
His Son to such unparalleled humiliation, that such 
an interposition is too wonderful and too strange to 
l)e believed. But notwithstanding these idle criti- 
cisms the whole Christian world now, as for nineteen 
centuries, glories in this gospel because none but God 
Himself in our nature could ever make an atone- 
ment that could save our guilty souls or render satis- 
faction for a world's transgressions. Upon any other 
hypothesis mankind would give up in despair the 
hope of salvation ; upon any other hypothesis, the 
Bible scheme of redemption is illogical and unmean- 
ing. Nothing short of a Divine surety and a Divine 
sacrifice could ever answer the ends to be accom- 
plished, vindicate the Divine law, and satisfy infinite 
justice. It must be salvation through the Cross of a 
Divine Saviour, God incarnate, or no salvation at all. 
Away then, from mind and heart, the thought that 
Jesus is only a greater Socrates or Plato. Of what pos- 
sible benefit can that be to a poor, lost, undone sinner. 
Give unto us our God on whom to fasten our hopes of 
salvation. To Him we will cling forever ; and when 
wre can no longer retain our consciousness, when we 
are torn away from our family and from the familiar 



The Vital Question. 135 

scenes of earth, and an unseen hand pushes our bark 
across the Jordan of death, then in " Emmanuel, God 
with us/' will we put our trust, and upborne by 
His mighty and loving hand pass quietly over the 
troubled waters into the haven of rest. 

3d. This question is preeminently a practical one, 
which should shape our everyday life and conduct. 
The great atonement which Christ made for your sins 
and mine, is not a bare isolated fact for us to receive 
or not just as we would some fact in history or science ; 
but, it is something to be applied to ourselves — some- 
thing to be acted upon — something to be lived up to. 
God has done so much for us, has given to us so abun- 
dantly of His love and His grace ; and have we on our 
part nothing to do ? we, no sacrifice to make ? we, 
no cross to bear ? Ah ! our own reason, our own best 
thoughts and impulses convince us to the contrary. 
God has done His part, we must do ours. He hath 
made us free moral agents, free to accept or reject 
the wondrous offer of salvation. It is a solemn and 
awakening thought that we may by our own indiffer- 
ence and neglect render this great work of human 
redemption of no benefit or avail to ourselves. 

During the last century there lived in one of the 
rural districts of England a faithful parish minister 
of the Church. One day he went, as was his custom. 



136 The Vital Question, 

to a farmhouse to teach and catechize the children. 
He asked the master of the family if all were assem- 
bled : ''AH/' answered the farmer, ''except the little 
girl who attends to the cattle." " Call her," said the 
minister ; and he postponed the catechizing till she 
came in. Each one was questioned in turn until the 
little girl was asked: "Have you a soul?" "No !"" 
she replied, in a slow, serious tone. ^ "Have yon 
never had a soul?" asked the minister. "Yes," 
said the child. " What became of it ?" " One day,^^ 
said she, " lately, while attending the cattle, my soul 
felt sad and troubled as I thought of my sinfulness 
and of what Jesus has done for me ; I wept and 
prayed, and I gave up that soul and all its affections, 
to Jesus." This touching anecdote of a child well 
illustrates our subject, and it will be a happy day for 
us when we can each say with that simple, trusting 
child, " I have given my soul to Jesus." What think 
ye of Christ ? Depend upon it, it is a most searching, 
deep, vital question ; it probes the inmost recesses of 
our hearts, and upon the answer we give to it must 
depend our eternity. 



XVIII. 

While the Holy Scriptures contain much that is 
plain and easy to be comprehended concerning spe- 
cially our present needs and practical duties, it must 
be admitted that it also contains much that is mys- 
terious and incomprehensible. This is no ground 
whatever of objection to Divine revelation, but 
rather a proof of the truth and genuineness of the 
sacred volume. A revelation trom God which treats 
of the nature of the Divine Being and of the future 
life must necessarily treat of some questions which 
are beyond the grasp and comprehension of finite 
beings like ourselves. One of the greatest of English 
preachers has said, ^^Give me the majestic cloud, the 
oracular veil, the mighty shadows which recede a& 
we advance, filling the mind with amazement and 
forbidding us to approach and examine what they 
are. I wish to be defeated in every effort to under- 
stand God and futurity. I wish when I have 
climbed to the highest pinnacle to which human 
thought can attain to be compelled to confess that 
1 have not reached the base of the everlasting hills."' 
** For it doth not yet appear, what we shall be.'' 
137 



138 The Hidden Future. 

In that striking picture called the ^^ Voyage of 
Xife/' with which we are all familiar, the artist 
Tepresents a voyager setting out in his youth upon a 
broad and beautiful river which flows on amid 
lovely and enchanting scenes. As his bark glides 
smoothly along he beholds the green and attractive 
shores reflected in inimitable beauty and perfection 
in those still waters. Now he sees the distant moun- 
tain-tops rising one above another, draped with the 
fleecy cloud; and, now, his eye rests upon quiet val- 
leys reposing in all their loveliness in the shadows 
below. All is beautiful and enchanting now to the 
young voyager. But there are darker shades in the 
picture beyond. Far down that river on whose 
smooth surface there plays not a single ripple— oh ! 
how many a sharp rock, how many a foaming and 
dashing cataract, how many a dangerous whirlpool 
are in his way; and before he is aware of it he may 
1)0 entangled in extreme perils, and his boat be 
liurled upon those which lurk in the cold black waters. 
Is there not here presented a true and life-like pict- 
ure of man's moral and spiritual history? The 
Christian sets out on the voyage to eternity with fair 
prospects before him, each object and scene painted 
by his youthful fancy in dazzling colors. But how 
soon the whole scene changes ! How many a dash- 



I 



The Hidden Future. 139 

ing breaker of temptation, how many a tempest of 
affliction lies concealed beneath the surface of that 
river; and if by the aid of God's heavenly grace, the 
young voyager does escape spiritual shipwreck, and 
rises up bruised and saddened, how soon does he 
encounter another spiritual conflict and another 
sharp trial. Thus is it in spiritual things. A hidden 
and mysterious future lies before us. '' We know 
not what shall be on the morrow." 

1. Let us endeavor to justify this plan of God — ^this 
liiding of the future. This arrangement of our heav- 
enly Father betokens His matchless wisdom as well 
as His love and mercy. It is a plan carefully adapted 
to our weak and finite nature ; and calculated to 
develop the heavenly graces of patience and faith. 
We should be thankful to the Almighty Father that 
He hides the hereafter and throws over future events 
a veil of secrecy. For, suppose for example, the mer- 
chant knew beforehand that at some precise, fixed 
unhappy day his btisiness would be involved in bank- 
ruptcy and ruin, how would that painful impression 
take away at once all zest and interest in it ? What 
a gloomy aspect would this prevision throw over all 
his employments ? If we knew beforehand the 
future, who would enter on the marriage-state, with 
the precise and infallible certainty that at some 



140 The Hidden Future. 

definite day just such a death would enter his happy 
home and lay its icy touch on his beloved wife or 
his little ones, knowing all the while the day 
appointed in which he would behold the painful scene 
of those dear to him suffering by accident or sharp 
disease in agony and deadly pain ? How would such 
an impression unhinge and break up the fabric of 
human society. If, too, the future were made known, 
what room would there be for the exercise of trust 
and endurance and the strength of calm resignation ? 
It is just this impenetrable darkness of the future 
which prevents men from sinking down into discour- 
agement and despair. While hope paints the days 
to come with happy resting places, man rises up with 
new courage and pursues his favorite calling ; and sa 
it is with the Christian pilgrim. He does not faint 
nor fall by the way ; he looks forward to the future 
— ^the unclouded vision of God — the thrones and 
starry crowns of the righteous, upheld by faith and 
hope ; and he patiently perseveres to the end, adopt- 
ing as his motto : 

** Onward ! for the glorious prize, 

Onward yet, 
Bright and clear before thine eyes 
In the homeward path way Ues; 
Rest is not beneath the skies, 

Onward yet. 



The Hidden Future, 141 

Tarry not : around thy way 
Danger lies : oh ! fear to stay : 
Eouse then, Christian, watch and pray, 
Onward yet!'' 

2. In regard to the future after death, and also 
in regard to the state of the redeemed in heaven, it 
is still true that the future is hidden. Oh ! how 
many a man has sat down^ — and of women^ many 
more — sat down beside the couch of a sick and dear 
friend, and beheld with most intense solicitude 
the dying out of life's taper ! You have watched the 
spirit about to depart as it plumed its flight to the 
realms of upper-day ; you have looked into the now 
cold and lifeless face, and has not your heart longed 
to know what could be the precise condition of that 
liberated spirit ? ''Oh/' you have said to yourself, 
^'if my friend could only come back for a moment 
and tell me his experience. Where art thou ? Art 
thou holding blessed communion with spiritual and 
immortal intelligences in that wonder-realm whither 
thou hast gone ? Dost thou ever look back on those 
earthly scenes with which thou wast once familiar, 
and sympathize in the toils and struggles and trials 
of those thou didst leave still in this lower world ? 
What is the nature of that rest with which those 
who die in the Lord are blessed ?" These and such 



142 The Hidden Future. 

like questions, how often how anxiously have they 
crossed our minds. But, no answer comes back 
from those pale cold lips. No answer, did I say ? 
Yes ! we have the words of the Apostle, which seem 
to roll back like distant music upon our listening 
hearts : ''Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know 
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him for 
we shall see Him as He is." We shall be like Him, 
like Christ; is not that enough ? Let us be content 
that the future is hidden from our sight and revealed 
but partially even to our faith, and let us persevere 
unto the end, if such deep and unutterable bliss shall 
be ours at the last. 



XIX. 

What a dreary and desolate scene would the 
world be without hope ! As a principle of our nature 
acting upon us in regard to matters pertaining to the 
present life, hope often exerts a most magical influ- 
ence over the mind. How it lifts the soul upward from 
the darkened scenes of earthly calamity to brighter 
worlds of its own creation decked with flowers and 
bright with smiling faces. How it draws pictures of 
ecstatic joy and paints gay visions of future bliss 
before the youthful imagination — visions, alas I 
which are often never realized. How it whispers of 
health to the sick man, of better and happier days 
to the downcast. How it breathes its sweet music into 
the ear of decrepid and frozen old age. Yes, earthly 
hope alone is a mighty principle ; and it is not possible 
for any earthly calamity to crush down utterly the 
human spirit so long as a single spark of hope 
remains to arouse and gladden it. Take an illustra- 
tion of the power of hope. Yonder within the huge 
massive stone walls of a prison is a prisoner's dark 
cell. In that cell is confined one of the most desper- 
143 



144 Hope. 

ate and hardened of criminals. There he is bound by 
chains to the hard floor, and seldom a ray of light 
^'leams through the narrow grating of his window ! 
and vet hope is there as a white robed angel by that 
wretched man's cot. She keeps her watch fires 
iDurning. There he sits in his lonely cell, day after 
day and week after week, the prey of his own evil 
thoughts and haunted by the specters of his own 
guilty imagination. But, suppose you bring the 
power of hope actively to bear upon that wretched 
man. Suppose you succeed in convincing him that by 
some means the door of his prison will yet be flung 
open and his eyes be permitted to greet the cheerful 
light of day I How quickly would you dispel from 
that haggard face the look of gloom and light it up 
with smiles 1 Why, the bare mention of dehverance 
would then be enough to make that wretched man's 
heart leap with gladness. What cares he now, think 
you. for the gloom of his prison and the chains that 
T^ind him so long as Hope with her magic pencil paints 
that enrapturing vision of liberty on his dark prison 
wall? 

In the year 1663, Vienna, the capital of Austria, 
was besieged by a large army of the Turks, who now 
stood just before the gates. As soon as the approach 
of this hostile force was made known, the Emperor 



Hope. 145 

fled from the city. What were the poor people 
within its walls to do ? Without a leader they were 
left in a state of sad fear and perplexity. The cry of 
distress arose, " What shall we do ?" At last a thought 
of hope came into their minds. '' The king of Poland, 
John Sobieski, he is our friend and will help us." 
A messenger was instantly sent entreating him to 
come to their rescue. But there was only one way 
for him to come, and that was a long distance over 
the great Northern mountains. It was a weary and 
anxious time ; for the siege began in July and lasted 
until some time in the following September. But 
these people never despaired. They still hoped on 
and hoped on ; and by and by, as they looked out 
upon the distant mountain tops they saw far away 
the brave Poles marching to their rescue. And they 
did rescue them, for that very day after a bloody and 
desperate battle Vienna was set free. Such is the 
power of earthly hope. But we propose now to 
speak of Christian hope, which is as much higher 
and grander in its character and results than earthly 
hope as eternity is more lasting than time. We will 
proceed to state some two or three grounds of the 
great superiority of Christian over worldly hope. And 
First. Christian hope has an unspeakably better 
object in view. 



146 Hope. 

What are the objects of earthly hopa ? Every man 
has some favorite object of pursuit ; it may be fame, 
riches, honor ; but whatever it be, he cannot reach 
his prize without a hard struggle. He must contest 
his way in life against many obstacles, perhaps amid 
worldly disappointments, domestic trials, and well- 
nigh crushing adversities. But at length he is 
successful, and secures the object of his earthly 
ambition. Is he satisfied ? Are his golden dreams of 
happiness realized ? Is it not after all grasping a 
shadow ? You pass by a stately mansion, and 
through the half -drawn curtains you see the rich 
furniture and brilliant ornaments within ; in that 
dwelling a sumptuous table is spread with every 
luxury that wealth can procure ; the cheerful evening 
firelight flashes on costly vessels of gold and silver, 
and its inmates tread those halls which are covered 
with soft velvet carpets : " Oh ! how happy," says 
one, '^ must those favored persons be who live in such 
a splendid mansion." But wait a few years and now 
enter that house again. Where are now the gay and 
happy faces that once occupied those grand apart- 
ments ? The rich owner once had a wife and beautiful 
daughter ; she possessed every grace and accomplish- 
ment ; she was the idol of his heart, the pride and 
ornament of his home ; he thought of her when he 



Hope. 147 

was building that splendid mansion ; she was even 
dearer to him than his bank-stock ; and he was fondly 
anticipating a day when she would grow up by his 
side as a noble vine to cheer and gladden his old age. 
But now, alas ! she is gone, and with grey locks, 
careworn looks and tottering limbs, he is going down 
to the narrow house appointed for all living. 

Such is the object and end of earthly hope. It 
weaves a bright future. It holds out a dazzling prize, 
which in the end changes to a bitter disappointment. 

ISow turn to the other side and see what are the 
objects of Christian hope. How vastly superior the 
latter to the former ! The Christian believer struggles 
on beset with temptations and diflftculties, but he 
gathers strength and courage as he goes forward 
facing life's trials. Why ? Because he has a most 
glorious object in view, his eye is directed to the 
mansions of the living God where " the wicked cease 
from troubling and the weary are at rest." He 
endures as Saint Paul did, ^'seeing Him Who is 
invisible," and he ''hath respect unto the recom- 
pense of the reward." He can say with that same 
Apostle, ''we know that if our earthly house of this 
tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, 
a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'' 
This is hope, sure and certain, which embraces within 



148 Hope. 

its view the infinite and the immortal ; and surely it 
evidences the superiority of Christian over earthly 
hope. 

2d. But another reason of this superiority is that 
Christian hope has a better basis to rest upon. Did 
you ever stand upon the surf -beaten shore and wait 
for the massive waves to roll in, threatening the 
sandy foundation on which you stood ? Did you ever 
v^ake up on some winter morning and see the earth 
sown with pearls, and every tree and bush, as it were, 
hung with sparkling diamonds, and then look out an 
hour or two after and behold all this magnificent scene 
dissipated by the sun's rays ? Does not this well repre- 
sent earthly hope's uncertainty ? Now it is not thus 
with Christian hope. " Our hope," says an eminent 
Divine, ' is not hung upon such an untwisted thread 
as : ^I imagine so,' 'it is very probable,' 'you may 
expect so-and-so,' but the strong rope of our fastened 
anchor is the oath and promise of Him Who is eternal 
verity. " ' ' Wherein God," says the Apostle, ' ' willing 
more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise 
the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an 
oath ; that by two immutable things in which it was 
impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong 
consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon 
the hope set before us in the Gospel ; which hope we 



Hope, 149 

have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead- 
fast." Can you imagine any stronger basis than this 
on which Christian hope rests ? This is the immova- 
ble rock on which the Christian's hope is founded, the 
sure word and promise of Almighty God ; a rock on 
which the believer can stand secure, and against 
which the waves of doubt and despair dash in vain. 
It stands 

*' As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread. 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.*' 

3d. Christian hope is vastly superior to worldly 
hope in the results to which it leads. I would not 
be understood to decry earthly hope. It is a gift and 
blessing for which we ought to be thankful to God. 
" It is," says a writer " one of those beautiful frag- 
ments of statuary left undestroyed by sin, and found 
among the ruins of man's fallen temple, and it only 
shows how fair and glorious must have been the 
original structure when it came from the hands of 
the great Architect." It is one of the noblest relics 
of the fall. God be thanked that it continues still to 
live on in this dark world. It is the parent of many 
noble deeds and heroic struggles. But we must not 
forget that earthly hope expires at the grave. 



150 Hope. 

What can it do for us in our last hour ? Shall it 
bring its allurements and fascination and try to 
turn our heart away from that sadness ? Alas ! 
"We have been misled too long by it to be deceived 
then. The soul turns away from the objects of 
earthly hope, that once dazzled and entrapped it in 
the days of health, when the world wa.s gay and a 
thousand lights were blazing ; and it reaches forth 
toward Christian hope, which is born of true faith, 
inspired by the Holy Spirit, and built upon the cross 
of Christ. Such a hope alone can sustain us and 
make for our souls a safe passage to the land of 
blessedness and rest. Oh! how many thousands on the 
earth and what countless multitudes in Paradise have 
set their seal to the truth of these words of Holy 
Scripture: '' The hope of the righteous shall be glad- 
ness ;'^ '' blessed is the man whose hope the Lord is.'' 



XX. 

The famous banquet of Belshazzar marked the 
downfall of the ancient and mighty city of Babylon, 
centre of that great empire that once ruled the world. 

That renowned city had around it a circuit of walls 
fifty miles in length and three hundred feet high. It 
had two hundred and fifty towers and one hundred 
and forty gates of brass which bade defiance to the 
battering ram and all other enginery of war. 
Besides, it had its hanging garden suspended nearly 
four hundred feet in the air— loaded with shrubs 
and waving trees; and numerous sparkling fountains 
leaped from beneath the fioral arches. The haughty 
monarch, Belshazzar, as he walked the balcony of his 
palace, looked out upon a scene of grandeur. The 
massive structures of art lay piled one above another 
and the brilliant sunshine was refiected back from 
the silver waters of the Euphrates. 

It is night. The shadows of evening are gathering 
over the magnificent city. The air is soft and clear, 
151 



152 Belshazzar's Feast. 

while crowds of gaily dressed men and women are 
hurrying through those lighted streets, some pressing 
into theaters, some into galleries of art, while others 
still are moving on toward the palace gates. What 
is appearing there? The king has prepared a royal 
feast in honor of his own imperial sway and great- 
ness. Thousands are moving on toward the scene 
of the royal banquet. Look at the splendid banquet - 
room! How gorgeous! Column after column, arch 
above arch, long glittering corridors. See the statues 
of great men looking down from their pedestals; see 
the costly hangings, the gay garlands, the rich orna- 
ments, all combining to form such a dazzling scene 
as the earth never saw before. And now comes in 
the king himself, with a thousand of his lords. The 
hall is lighted with golden candlesticks. The table is 
spread with every conceivable luxury. Princes and 
nobles are there ; women dressed with the most 
costly apparel and bedecked with the rarest jewels 
grace the scene. When all are seated, the command 
goes forth, ''Fill up the golden goblets ; let the rich 
perfume rise thickly from the censers; raise the loud 
and merry laugh and let enrapturing bursts of music 
be heard through all the place." From thousands of 
lips of riotous guests there proceeds the cry, ''Oh! 
thou mighty potentate, live forever!" The feast 



Belshazzar's Feast. 155 

is at its height. Wilder and still wilder grows the 
tumult; louder and still louder ring the shouts of 
laughter, insane mirth and drunken song. Then 
suddenly there is a pause in that high revelry, sud- 
denly that company of feasters and guests cease 
their mirth. The startled monarch Belshazzar turns 
pale, and the untasted goblet falls from his lips. The 
women stand aghast, or fall fainting upon the marble 
floor. What is the cause of this? Is it a ghostly 
visitant that has come to terrify the haughty mon- 
arch and his careless friends? No, there is a myster- 
ious hand-writing on the wall. What is it? The 
terrified and guilty monarch calls for Daniel the 
prophet, to come in and interpret the ominous writ- 
ing. Daniel obeys the summons. His inspired 
vision scans the future, and he foretells the doom of 
that proud and wicked city, under the fearful judge- 
ment of a just God, whose laws the king had set at 
defiance. The sentence was written in letters of fire 
on the walls of the banquet-room, ''Mene, Mene, 
Tekel, Upharsin." ^'Thou art weighed in the bal- 
ances, and art found wanting." 

We will now close the doors of that grand palace; 
we will not detail the scene of that terrible night's 
slaughter, nor picture the gorgeous apartment so lately 
filled with merry guests, now filled with the bodies- 



154 



Belshazzar^s Feast. 



of the slain, the king himself among them. Let us 
draw a veil over such a terrible scene, and yet try to 
gather a few lessons from it. 

1st. It teaches that irreligion, impiety and infidelity 
will surely work a nation's downfall. When a peo- 
ple cast off the fear of Almighty God, set at defiance 
His righteous law, and become corrupt, profligate 
and sensual, not recognizing a Supreme Being or 
their responsibility to Him, but desecrating His 
Sabbaths; or when they become worshippers of false 
Gods, and not only so, but cast contempt and ridi- 
cule upon the God of their forefathers, then their 
downfall is near. 

Belshazzar was not ignorant. He had opportuni- 
ties of knowing God's will. He had seen the awful 
judgement of heaven which befell Nebuchadnezzar 
hefore him, for his idolatry and impiety; and yet, in 
.spite of the laws of God and the dictates of conscience, 
irreverently and blasphemously he sets religion aside. 
Let any nation do this; let any nation devote itself 
to pride and mammon and vanity, and it needs not now 
a prophet to predict that nation's doom, for all his- 
tory teaches it. The city m.ay seem impregnable, 
and fitted to defy all human assaults. It may have 
tried soldiers, sagacious legislators, prosperous trades, 
far-reaching commerce; but if it tramples on the 



Belshazzar's Feast, 155 

divine law and seeks earthly good, earthly aggran- 
dizement only, that nation will fall, and over its appall- 
ing ruin will be written, as in letters of fire: " Thou 
are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." 
2d. We may learn another lesson from this narra- 
tive, viz: that it is the duty of God's ministers boldly 
to expose and rebuke sin and worldliness. At that 
critical moment when the feast had reached its high- 
est splendor and all hearts were aglow — and, then, 
shortly after, when a thrill of horror rushed through 
€very soul, and when the king himself became 
alarmed, so that in the language of the Sacred Word, 
*^'his countenance was changed, and his thoughts 
troubled him; the joints of his loins were loosed, and 
his knees smote the one against the other," he 
Bends for the astrologers and asks them to explain 
the meaning of the inscription on the wall. But 
when they could not explain it, blank terror seized 
the mind of the king and the minds of his courtiers. 
What is now to be done? Presently a woman, calm, 
dignified, resolute, suggests the person who shall 
solve the difficulty — Daniel the prophet, a man 
gifted by God with a superhuman wisdom. The 
king sends for him, and Daniel comes in, and with a 
boldness and a decision worthy of his high position, 
unfolds before the trembling monarch his crimes. It 



156 Belshazzar's Feast. 

would have been far pleasanter to have extolled the 
king and joined the multitudes in their vain adula- 
tion. But Daniel knew that he had a duty to dis- 
charge, and that such a course would give him only 
a momentary popularity, and at the cost of compro- 
mising his principles and offending his conscience. 
So it is often the duty of Christ's ministers to 
denounce sin and rebuke iniquity. Let them not 
fear, but rather imitate the example of Daniel. 
Daniel did not thrust himself unbidden into the palace 
of Belshazzar; he came when bidden, and did his duty 
as a servant and prophet of the Most High. He had 
a firm trust in God, and God was his protection and 
reward. 



XXI, 

We have often noticed some thick green hedge 
enclosing, it may be, a lawn, a garden, a dwelling, 
and forming a compact wall of protection and 
beauty. As that hedge surrounds and protects the 
fruits and flowers of the garden and adds to its 
loveliness, so does God surround each one of us with 
various moral barriers and restraints to protect us 
from harm and danger, and make our life righteous; 
and these may not inappropriately be termed '^the 
Divine hedges." Let us proceed in this brief letter 
to enumerate some of them : 

1st. There is the hedge of conscience. This has 
been well termed God's viceroy over the realm of the 
human spirit. It always registers a faithful verdict 
upon every action of our lives. It is a monitor 
within reach of us which asserts its right to over- 
rule taste, caprice, interest. It commends the good 
and warns us of the evil. Whoever swerves from 
the path of duty or follows the dictates of his own 
157 



158 Divine Hedges. 

evil passions and desires, and ventures for the sake 
of ease and sinful indulgence to walk in ways whicK 
end in ruin and perdition, whoever does this does 
it, you may rest assured, against loud and constant 
accusations from within. He may smother this 
voice for a time, may disregard the laws of God, and 
go in the path of sin ; but let him not think that con- 
science will always sleep. No. This Divine moni^ 
tor within will always awake to fulfill its office. It 
will pierce through the thick walls of his fancied 
security, and in tones which shall startle and alarm 
and rebuke him for his misdoing and folly. Look 
for example at the case of the prodigal son. When 
far away in that distant land, in a state of poverty 
and want, his splendid apparel exchanged for 
squalid rags, instead of the rich dainties of his 
father's house eating the husks which the swine ate, 
as his thoughts went back to the old happy scenes^ 
of home, how did conscience smite him with its loud 
and unsparing accusations ! With what thorns did 
it fill every pillow where he would fain rest his 
weary head, until he resolved to arise and go to his 
father, confess his sin and plead for forgiveness ! Or, 
look at the case of Joseph's brethren. When they 
from love of gain and envy sold that lovely boy into 
the hands of the Ishmaelites, and took back the 



Divine Hedges. 159 

coat of many colors to their father, covered with 
stains of blood, and the old man was bowed down 
with grief over the sad fate of the darling of his. 
heart, was conscience asleep, think you, in the 
breasts of those cruel men ? They thought, doubt- 
less, this was an end of the matter. But it was 
not so. During all the successive steps of that 
wonderful boy's history, from the day when he left 
his father's tents, until he was finally invested with 
the chief power in Egypt, next to the King, con- 
science was busy rebuking those men ; and when 
they came down to buy corn for their famished 
households, and Joseph, then raised to such great 
dignity, made himself known to them, saying : 
^^I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?" — words 
which could not have been less astonishing to them 
than if the earth itself had opened beneath their 
feet — Oh ! then how must conscience have smitten 
them, filled their hearts with shame and remorse, 
and painted their guilt before them ! We cannot but 
see what a powerful hedge, what a mighty wall of 
protection the Almighty has placed around our 
pathway in this one attribute of conscience. 

2d. Another is those emotions of pleasure which 
follow upright conduct and deeds of charity. 

Virtue and goodness are in their nature joy-pro- 



160 Divine Hedges. 

ducing. Did any one ever hear of a man who had 
done a good or benevolent deed repenting of it ? Sup- 
pose, for instance, you were standing upon the deck 
of a vessel at sea, and there stood by your side a 
mother with her bright and beautiful boy in her arms, 
and she were by unhappy accident to drop that boy 
into the water, and you instantly, with a noble disre- 
gard of self, plunge over the ship's side and rescue 
the child from a watery grave and restore it to its 
mothers arms, would you not reap a rich reward, 
not only in the overflowing gratitude of that mother, 
but also in the f eehngs of your own heart ? There is 
no good action without its harvest of rejoicing in the 
doers own soul. 

You sit down with a child in a Sunday-school, and 
endeavor to impress upon its young mind the truths 
of our holy rehgion, to teach that young susceptible 
heart the love of Jesus, the beauty of holiness, the 
happiness of heaven; and you are more than paid for 
the labor in the consciousness of good attempted, if 
not also of great good done. And so, of all righteous- 
ness and charity in our lives. 

3d. Another '• Divine hedge" is to be found in the 
Church of God, What can be more admirably fitted 
to train men in the way of holiness and keep them 
from the evil that is in the world than this ? The 



Divine Hedges. 161 

Sunday services and devotions, the sermons preached, 
the prayers offered, the hymns sung, the Sacraments 
received — what a mighty influence do these exert 
upon us ? Phihp Henry said, of a well-spent Sab- 
bath : ^^If this be not the way to heaven, I know 
not what is." 

It is by the Church that the infant is brought into 
the family of God through holy baptism. It is here 
that he receives his early religious training, and that 
pi ecious seed is sown in the young heart which will 
ri n into a future glorious harvest. It is here that 
he omes to renew in confirmation the baptismal vow. 
01 : how many tender, solemn, and powerful associ- 
ations centre around the Church of God ! how many 
sweet, never-dying memories of Sunday privileges 
centre here ! Coleridge once remarked : ^^ I feel as if 
God, by giving us the Sabbath, has given us fifty-two 
springs of spiritual life and comfort in every year." 
"When we think of the mighty influence for good 
which the Church exerts, how it guards and protects 
the spiritual character of its members from childhood 
to old age, presides at the birth, the bridal, the burial, 
we can but look upon it as one of the strong hedges 
which God has thrown around us to guard us from 
evil and conduct us at last to our heavenly home. 



162 Divine Hedges, 

4th. Still another hedge placed about us bv a Divine 
hand — adversity, affliction, trial. 

Whence come afflictions? God's Word assures us 
that thev do not spring from the ground — that they 
are part of the necessary discipline ^hich is to fit us 
for another and higher state of being. Trials are, 
indeed, hard to bear. It is no easy thing to see the 
sweet child of one's love pine away and die. It 
would be much more pleasant to us to enjoy unin- 
terrupted ease and prosperity, and gHde along 
smoothly upon the current of life, lulled by the soft 
music of its waters. But God Who knows better than 
we. puts thorns and briers into our present downy 
nest of prosperity, lest we sleep the sleep of spiritual 
death. Afflictions have a wise end in view. Even 
the heathen, Bion, could say, '"It is a great misfor- 
tune not to endure misfortune." Anaxagoras. when 
his house was in ruin and his estate wasted, exclaimed 
^' If they had not perished. I should have perished." 

5th. Another hedge is to be found in the influences 
of God's blessed Sjjirif. He acts upon our hearts and 
inclines us to that which is good. He takes of the 
things of Christ and shows them unto us. The office 
of the Spirit is to • ' convince the world, of sin, of 
righteousness and of judgement." He is ever draw- 



Divine Hedges. 163 

ing us unto the fountain of living waters, ever lead- 
ing us onward and upward. Our sanctification 
is His gift. If we are moved to righteous living it is 
His inspiration. If we weary not in well doing it 
is His strength. Such are some of the wonderful 
hedges which God hath placed around our path to 
protect us from evil and bring us to happiness and 
peace. And if this be true, it seems to enforce the 
profound doctrine that ^^God is love.'' His tender 
mercy is over all His works. He willeth not the 
death of a sinner, but rather that he should be con- 
verted and live. Surely our wisdom is to respect these 
Divine barriers and to live within them. Obey the 
dictates of that inward monitor and guide, the con- 
science. Know by happy experience the pure enjoy- 
ment which accompanies upright conduct and loving 
deeds. Prize the Church of God, its sweet Sabbath 
privileges, its praises and prayers. Regard our afflic- 
tions not as mere accidents and mischances, but, 
as so many golden links in the chain of God's love, 
designed to lift us from this present scene of suffer- 
ing and sorrow to the untold joys and splendor of 
the New Jerusalem. To that city through God's 
abounding mercy and grace may we at length come! 
There, not hedges any longer but freedom in the 



164 Divine Hedges, 

truth and in holy obedient love forevermore. Oh 
heavenly Jerusalem! 

*' Thy gardens and thy goodly walks 

Continually are green, 
"Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 

As nowhere else are seen, 
night through thy streets, with pleasing sound, 

The living waters flow. 
And on the banks on either side, 

The trees of life do grow." 



XXII. 

The transfiguration of Christ is one of the most 
striking and marvellous events of His life upon the 
earth. It is supposed by Biblical scholars to have 
taken place on Mount Tabor in Galilee, a lofty sum- 
mit, six miles east of Nazareth. From this bold ele- 
vation is visible the Jordan, winding like a silver 
thread through the valley below ; far away in the 
north-west, you behold the shining waters of the 
Mediterranean. On the east, you see the quiet sleep- 
ing Lake of Gennesaret ; and, in the distance, 
Hermon with its snowy peak, and Carmel with its 
ever-green pine and venerable oak. This was the 
place of our Blessed Lord's transfiguration. Here 
it was that there occured that most astonishing and 
glorious scene, the like to which earth had never 
before witnessed. Let us for a moment go back in 
time, and with the aid of the light to be gathered 
from the Scripture narrative, let us endeavor to 
describe this wondrous event. It is near the dusk 
of evening, and a little company consisting of four 
persons may be seen leaving their quiet homes and 
165 



166 



The Transfiguration. 



taking their way toward that mountain of which we 
have just spoken. One of them is Jesus the Divine 
Saviour. Another is Peter, the impulsive and intrepid 
leader of the twelve; a third is James the Apostle ; 
and the fourth John, the beloved disciple, the Lord's 
most constant and endeared companion. Onward 
this little band press their way toward the favored 
mountain which was so soon to be crowned with its 
grand scenes and wondrous revelations. As they 
climb up the steep, rugged pathway, the dim twi- 
light deepens into denser darkness ; the lights in the 
distant city grow dim, and in the still evening no 
sound is heard but the wind as it stirs the thick 
foliage, or the rivulet of the wilderness as it dashes 
along over the rocks. The journey was a laborious 
one ere these travelers gained the desired summit. 
Nearly four hundred years ago the immortal Raphael 
after long care and industry completed his grand 
picture of the Transfiguration. It was placed in St. 
Peter's, Rome, and to this day retains its wonderful 
and impressive beauty. It is said that every figure, 
every expression and look, every color and shade is 
as perfect and life-like as when drawn by the artist's 
hand ; and if the painting so thrills the astonished 
beholder what, we may well ask, must have been 
the event itself ? 



The Transfiguration. 167 

Imagine if you can, the scene: The Son of Mary; 
the Carpenter of Nazareth; the Master Who had 
journeyed with His disciples through Judea and Gal- 
ilee, and submitted Himself to continual hardships 
and privations — this same Jesus is now changed 
before their eyes into a Form of unearthly brightness. 
Around those rough worn garments, woven without 
a seam, there gathers a strange radiance, while His 
countenance gleams with celestial splendor. As the 
evangelist says, ^^His face shone as the sun, and 
His garments became white as the light;" and St. 
Mark adds: ''Such as no fuller on earth can white 
them." It would seem as if the Saviour designed to 
give us here a manifestation of the heavenly glory, 
on this side of the border line of the future world. 
Then appear two resplendent beings from the invisi- 
ble realm, Moses and Elias, talking with Jesus. The 
disciples gaze in wonder and great fear, and Peter 
cries out " Lord, it is good for us to be here, and let 
us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one 
for Moses and one for Elias;" and then we are told, a 
bright luminous cloud overshadowed them and a 
voice proceeded out of the cloud saying: " This is My 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye 
Him!" Overcome by this supernatural vision the 
disciples fall prostrate on the ground, but are soon 



168 The Transfiguration, 

brought back again to consciousness by the restoring 
hand and voice of Jesus. What then follows? "We 
are told that ^'they saw no man but Jesus only." 
The momentary splendor of Mount Tabor, Moses 
and Elias in their shining vestments, the cloud with 
its unearthly effulgence — these have faded away. 
But, it is not a matter of surprise that all these 
lesser accompaniments of that wondrous scene 
should be utterly lost in the presence of Jesus. Let 
us now briefly consider the thought here suggested, 
that Jesus is the one supreme object which shines 
forth and surpasses all others ; the marvel of 
marvels. 

1st. Look at Him in iKs &zW/i. It is true,f/iere,that 

we can see none but Jesus only. How wonderful 

His advent into our world — a helpless infant ! His 

cradle a manger I His birthplace a stable ! His 

parents, the humble virgin and the carpenter Joseph 1 

Look, the heavens are lighted up with a dazzling 

glory ! a new born star gleams nightly in Judea's 

sky! A host of angels descend from heaven to earth 

and fill the air with their entrancing melody I Who 

is this helpless infant ? It is God's own eternal Son. 

He lived ages before the world was made. '' The 

King of Kings," ^^The Wonderful," ^^ Counsellor," 

'^the Mighty God," ^^the Everlasting Father," ^^the 



The Transfiguration, 169 

Prince of Peace." Was there ever such a child ? Who 
is not astonished at the marvel of His birth ? Who i& 
not ready to confess " we see none but Jesus only.'' 
2d. Look at His boyhood. Let us go into the 
humble abode of the carpenter. In all probability it 
was a very plain dwelling with little furniture, no 
show or ornament; doubtless a wooden chest was 
there, with tools. And here lived the youthful Jesus, 
kind and dutiful to His parents, winning by His 
gentle temper and holy walk the esteem and love 
of all who knew Him. Who is that gentle lovely 
boy ? He is the Son of God. He has a higher, 
nobler descent than that of Mary. He had being 
before Mary was born — before the world began, 
or time. See him when, twelve years old. He goes 
up to the temple at Jerusalem, and sits among those 
learned Rabbis, silencing their wise interpretations- 
by His amazing wisdom. Was there ever such a 
marvellous boy, possessed of an understanding 
which confounded those old Jewish Doctors, an 
understanding deeper than that of Plato or Soc- 
rates? Was there ever such a child, in all history, 
as this? '^Holj, harmless, undefiled and separate 
from sinners," His youth without a fault or a stain, 
beginning His existence not as other children who 
inherit the fallen nature of their parents, but starting 



170 • The Transjiguration. 

into life pure and innocent, and like tlie sun, advanc- 
ing cloudless and bright to its noon. 

3d. Then again: Look at Jesus, as a minister and 
public teacher, holding His hearers spell-bound by 
His doctrine, so that all the people were very atten- 
tive to hear Him, listening to the lessons of heavenly 
truth that fell from His lips, in the Temple, in places 
of pubhc resort, by the vray. and on the moun- 
tain side. To compare Jesus as a teacher with 
others, is as absurd as it is irreverent. It is hke com- 
paring the glories of the noonday sun with the pale 
glimmer of marsh-light. ^Vho but Jesus would have 
dared to utter such words as these : "I am the light 
of the world:** "I and my Father are one:** "I, if 
I be hfted up, will draw all men unto me"? For a 
mere man to make such declarations would be noth- 
ing short of blasphemy: and yet, the judgment of 
the world, for eighteen centuries past, has not been 
able to discover in them the slightest egotism. 

Moreover, follow Jesus to the place of His death, 
and who ever died as Jesus died, amid supernatural 
darkness, the tliroes of an earthquake, the temple's 
veil rent asunder, and the graves of many saints 
opened, from which the awakened sleepers arose 
and came into the city after His resurrection I Think, 
also, of His resurrection: when, though placed 



The Transfiguration. 171 

in a tomb sealed up, and guarded well by Roman 
soldiers, yet an angel descends and rolls back the 
stone from the mouth of the sepulchre; and Jesus, 
T^y His own might, comes forth a triumphant King 
and Conqueror, thus securing to man the glorious 
Tiope of a resurrection. Once more: Consider Him 
as He ascends up to ^' the glory which He had with 
the Father before the world was," exalted high 
above angels and archangels, cherubim and sera- 
phim, worshipped by all the heavenly hosts — who is 
there that can be compared with Jesus ? Who, as 
Tiis eye gazes round on the wondrous vision of 
Tieaven, as he beholds the assembly of the glorified, 
v^ill not first, and above all, fall down and worship 
Jesus ? It will not be the glorious walls, and the 
sapphire throne, the gates of pearl, the golden 
streets, and the crystal river which will attract and 
fix the attention of the saved and fill his thoughts*, 
but Jesus, our Lord. He is the beatific vision. As 
it was with the disciples of old, so will it be with us 
who attain to that heavenly land; we shall ^'see 
none but Jesus only," with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. 



XXIII. 

There is no day so memorable in the Church cal- 
endar as the festival of Easter. I know not a more 
befitting theme with which to occupy at this time 
the attention of the readers of your Magazine than 
those words addressed by the angels to the devout 
women who came to visit Jesus' sepulchre: ''Come 
see the place where the Lord lay/' And 

1st. We may regard this as an invitation to visit 
the tomb of Jesus. How can I invite you to a spot 
more interesting and more sacred than this — the 
tomb of Jesus. What stirring historical associations 
and memories of the past cluster around it ! During 
the whole of what are called ''the Middle Ages '' the 
tomb of Jesus was the great central-point of interest 
and attraction. Myriads at that time, of the young 
and the old, the wise and the ignorant, the king and 
the serf, princes and warriors from the countries of 
Europe and Asia, many of them roused by the 
preaching of Peter the Hermit — all these pressed 
forward toward that sacred spot animated by one 
and the same purpose of recovering it from the 
hands of unbelievers. That famous battle-cry of 
172 



Easter. 173 

the past has ceased, but the tomb of Jesus has lost 
none of its interest. It is still the bright goal toward 
which countless pilgrim feet have pressed and are 
still pressing from every land and every clime ; and 
around which innumerable hearts have throbbed with 
sacred emotion, as being the place once consecrated 
by Jesus' form ; into which Joseph and Mcodemus 
once 'bore Jesus' crucified body; where that body 
reposed over the Sabbath ; where it awoke to life, 
and into which the angels and the Marys and the 
amazed disciples entered on that first Easter morn. 
In extending to you this invitation, ^^ Come see the 
place where the Lord lay," I do not ask you to visit 
the precise spot where the Saviour was buried and 
arose, for I do not know that this is settled beyond 
a doubt. It is not an essential thing, and therefore 
it is hardly worth while to enter into those controver- 
sies which have been carried on by learned writers 
in reference to the exact locality of Jesus' tomb. 
What is now called the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, where the marble floors are worn by 
numberless visitors, where bright lamps and costly 
incense are kept burning, may or may not be upon 
the place where that sepulchre was. It matters 
not. It was once known. To whom ? 
Mary knew it. She who had been once such a 



174 Easter. 

notorious sinner, and who had experienced the sweet- 
ness of her Saviour's forgiving love; who washed 
his feet with tears, and wiped them with the soft 
tresses of her hair; who hastened forth at early 
dawn on that memorable Easter morning, with ten- 
der affection, to visit the sepulchre, and who when 
she arrived there beheld the astonishing scene — the 
huge stone rolled away, the armed sentinels fallen 
on their faces, and the angels clad in white robes 
sitting there! Yes, Maryknew where Jesus' tomb was. 
Joseph of Arimathea, he also knew. He who 
had secretly loved Jesus; who was a member of the 
Jewish Sanhedrim, and opposed in vain their action 
in condemning the Saviour; who went and begged the 
body of Jesus, and in company with Nicodemus, bore 
it sadly and silently to his own new tomb in a gar- 
den, thus preventing the Saviour's body from being 
buried with those of malefactors in the potter's 
field; by which tender act of Christian love, his name 
and memory will ever be fragrant in the Church on 
earth — he knew where Jesus' tomb was. Who else 
knew it? Joanna, Salome, Mary the mother of 
James. With hearts heavy with grief, these devout 
women, the faithful followers of Jesus, came early 
to the sepulchre, bearing sweet spices to embalm His 
body. The thought now uppermost in their minds 



Easter. 175 

was, ''Who shall roll away for us the stone from the 
sepulchre?" What was their surprise when they 
found it already rolled away, and a white-robed angel^, 
with a countenance that out-flashed the lightning-, 
sitting upon it! Startled at the scene, they irmne- 
diately conjecture that Jesus' enemies must have been 
there and taken away the body. So, one of them 
runs to give the alarm, while the others tarry behind. 
Then it was that the angel turns to them and says, 
as if to quiet their fears: ''Be not affrighted. Ye 
seek Jesus of ISTazareth Who was crucified. He is 
not here; He is risen. Come see the place where 
the Lord lay." We may mention one or two more 
who also knew where Jesus' tomb was. One was Peter, 
impulsive and headlong in his disposition; sometimes 
guilty of moral weakness, denying his Lord and 
soon after repenting bitterly of his conduct. With 
characteristic impetuosity he runs to the sepulchre, 
enters it, and takes careful note of what he saw. 
And there was one more who knew where our 
Lord's tomb was — Mary, His mother. With what a 
bleeding heart she must have stood by the cross 
and listened to the last accents of His dying affection, 
"Woman, behold thy son!" and with what mingled 
awe and rejoicing must she have heard the glorious 
tidings of her Son's resurrection! But 



176 Easter. 

2d. Our subject invites us not only to consider the 
locality of Jesus' sepulchre but also to consider it as 
an open, empty sepulchre, as the place where the 
Lord lay. He was its prisoner once, but its prisoner 
for only three days. Let us go back for a moment 
and think of those scenes which followed the cruci- 
fixion. The excitement attending it has passed. The 
guilty participators in that tragedy have retired to 
their homes. There is a universal quietude since 
Jesus was borne by faithful loving hands to His 
burial in the garden of Joseph. It is now the 
dark of evening. The night shades are deepening, 
and the holy city sinks to its repose. You hear 
nothing but the gentle sighing of the winds as they 
sweep through the olive trees, or the clanking of the 
armor or weapons of the guards as they pass to and 
fro beside the tomb. Morning comes and a long day 
passes by. Jesus' enemies and murderers now feel 
confident that all His pretensions have come to a 
final end ; that the hopes of His followers are now 
forever blasted, and that the little faithful band who 
have forsaken home and friends and endured suffer- 
ings and privations for Jesus' sake will henceforth 
only be objects of the world's pity and scorn ! 

But night again enshrouds the earth. The bright 
stars twinkle gently in the sky. The hum of the 



Easter. 177 

"busy populace has died away, and nature moves on 
quietly and peacefully toward the coming morn, as 
though Jesus was truly and hopelessly dead. Dead! 
Is he dead ? Listen ! What sounds are those that 
we hear breaking the stillness of the hour ? An 
earthquake upheaves the ground. The rocks are 
rending. The sealed sepulchre is flung open. The 
hour is come ! The angel descends and rolls back 
the stone. At his presence the guards tremble and 
fall prostrate as dead men. Jesus awakes from His 
death-sleep — awakes by His own Divine energy 
and comes forth from His grave, victor of death I 
Yes! for the first time in the history of the world 
the dead hath had power- to live again ! Here is 
One Who hath conquered the conqueror of all 
kings and mighty ones ! Here is One Who hath 
broken open the prison-doors, and made Himself free 
from death's thraldom, and Who will also set His 
people free. We can easily imagine, then, how 
comforting and cheering must the words have been 
to those affrighted, sorrowing women: ^^Fear not, 
for I know that ye seek Jesus Which was crucified. 
He is not here, for He is risen, as He said. Come, 
see the place where the Lord lay." It was the same 
as if he had said, ''Be not troubled or disquieted at 
the scenes you behold. Cast aside your fears and 



178 Easter. 

doubts and ' see the place where the Lord lay/ 
See ! it is an open tomb — a deserted grave." What 
those women needed most of all, and what we all 
desire supremely, is to be assured of the reality of 
Christ's resurrection. One look at the open, deserted 
tomb of Jesus is worth more than the thousand 
vague guessings of philosophy or dim teachings of 
natural religion. ''Come, see the place where the 
Lord lay." That place was a grave. Jesus hath 
lain there ; so must we. We cannot shut death out 
of view, if we would. We must all die and be laid, 
as our Lord was, in the cold and silent grave. But is 
that all ? Does our being end in that ? No. Jesus' 
open tomb proclaims that there is a resurrection for 
the body, and for the soul an immortality ; that sin 
and death are not the supreme powers, but tyrants 
for a time only. Christ hath broken their dominion; 
and every true believer in Him can now say of the 
grave : 

* Grave, the guardian of our dust ! 

Grave, the treasury of the skies ! 
Every atom of thy trust 

Rests m hope again to rise. 
Hark ! the judgment trumpet calls : 

Soul, rebuild thy house of clay, 
ImmortaUty thy walls, 

And eternity thy day.'* 




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Treatment Date: April 2006 

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